Day 362/18. The Vyne in the winter sun

The Vyne, (near Basingstoke) was transformed from a cluster of medieval buildings into a Tudor palace between 1500 and 1520. The Vyne was described as ‘one of the Principale Houses in all Hamptonshire’.
After nearly being made destitute over the course of the English Civil War, in the 17th century, the sixth Lord Sandys sold The Vyne to Chaloner Chute, a barrister and the Speaker of the House of Commons.

The Chute family largely continued to own The Vyne well into the 20th century.
In the 1920s a girls’ boarding school occupied it for a time. During the Second World War boys from Tormore School in Deal, Kent, were evacuated here.
On the death of Sir Charles Chute in 1956, The Vyne was bequeathed to the National Trust.