The Vyne

The Vyne, near Basingstoke, was built in the early 1500s for William Sandys, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII, who entertained the king and Anne Boleyn here, and its Tudor chapel keeps some of England's finest early 16th-century stained glass. The Chute family bought it in 1653, added the first classical portico on an English country house and, in the 1760s, John Chute's Palladian staircase; it came to the National Trust in 1956. Outside are a lake, a walled garden, wetlands with a bird hide, the 600-year-old Hundred Guinea Oak and waymarked walks through ancient woodland that reviewers rate for spring bluebells. Reviewers repeatedly praise the room stewards, who look things up if they cannot answer, and the walk past the reservoir and weir. Tips from visitors: the house is a third of a mile from the car park off Morgaston Road (follow the brown signs, not satnav), dogs on short leads are welcome in the garden but not the house, and wellies help in the woods in winter.