Wollaton Hall

The design is believed to be by Robert Smythson, who had already completed Longleat and would go on to Hardwick Hall, though the exuberant decoration is distinctive to Wollaton and Sir Francis Willoughby may have had a hand in it. Scholars have traced the floor plan to Serlio's drawing of the Villa Poggio Reale near Naples, with elevations after Hans Vredeman de Vries; Mark Girouard has suggested instead a derivation from reconstructions of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, with Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall as a more direct inspiration. The stone is Ancaster stone from Lincolnshire, said to have been paid for with coal from the Wollaton pits — as, indeed, were the labourers. Cassandra Willoughby, Duchess of Chandos, recorded in 1702 that the master masons and some of the statuary came from Italy, and the carved gondola mooring rings on the outer walls offer some evidence of it.

Royalty came early: Sir Percival Willoughby hosted Anne of Denmark with Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth on 21 June 1603, and the future Charles I in 1604. A fire in 1642 left the house unused for roughly four decades before 1687, after which came successive campaigns of remodelling — ceiling paintings attributed to Sir James Thornhill and perhaps Louis Laguerre around 1700, then work by Wyatville from 1801 into the 1830s. The hall itself stayed essentially Elizabethan, complete with its 1580s "fake hammerbeam" ceiling, and its gallery holds Nottinghamshire's oldest pipe organ, thought to date from the end of the 17th century and still blown by hand.

The Willoughbys were noted for the number of explorers they produced. The most famous, Sir Hugh Willoughby, died in the Arctic in 1554 attempting a North East passage to Cathay, decades before the first stone of this house was laid; Willoughby's Land is named after him.

By 1881 the house was judged too near "the smoke and busy activity of a large manufacturing town", had been let to tenants and stood vacant. The 11th Baron Middleton sold it to Nottingham Corporation for £200,000, and the council opened it as a museum in 1926. A two-year refurbishment closed the hall in 2005; it reopened in April 2007 with the Prospect Room and the basement kitchens newly accessible to visitors.

Wollaton Hall is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuildings, and admission to the galleries — Natural Connections, Bird, Insect, Mineral, Africa and Natural History Matters — lets you see a fraction of some three-quarters of a million specimens. The Prospect Room at the top of the house and the kitchens in the basement can only be seen on one of the escorted tours; these can be booked on the day, last about an hour, and carry a small charge. For anyone drawn by the atmosphere of the place, that tour is the one to take, since it covers both the highest and the lowest parts of the building.

Organised public ghost hunts are held at the venue by event companies, and joining one is the straightforward way to spend an evening in the hall after the galleries have closed; check the organisers' listings for dates. Outside, the parkland is Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, with a herd of deer, a Camellia House, a doric temple and a ha-ha, and it is regularly given over to large-scale events — rock concerts, sporting fixtures and festivals — so it is worth checking what is on before you set out for a quiet walk.