The House and Garden

Castle House and its collection is a fitting memorial to Alfred Munnings. It was always his wish that his pictures and estate to be left to the Nation and after his death in 1959 Lady Munnings worked towards the setting up of Castle House as an art museum as a memorial to Sir Alfred. In 1962 the Violet Munnings Trust Fund was formed for the establishment and running of an Art Museum, and in 1965 Castle House Trust was formed whereby Castle House itself, all Sir Alfred Munnings's paintings still in the possession of Lady Munnings, some 40 acres of land surrounding Castle House and further amounts of money and investments were made over to the Trust. Lady Munnings subsequently retired to her Chelsea home where she died in October 1971.

Castle House, a mixture of Tudor and Georgian periods, with its well proportioned rooms, has been restored structurally and the original Munnings furniture has also been restored enabling the essential character of the house as lived in by the Munnings' to be retained. Two more galleries have been added and the pictures are displayed in pleasant and attractive surroundings. The house stands in spacious grounds with well maintained gardens.

A considerable number of pictures have been purchased by the Trustees in order to make the collection representative of Munnings's life span of work and to augment it, other pictures are borrowed from time to time from other museums and private collections.