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Erddig Tops the Polls by Roger Thomas
 "Visitors to Erddig this year will be treated to a particularly wonderful sight."
In a television vote to find Britain's finest stately home, magnificent Erddig House and Gardens, just south of Wrexham in North Wales, came second only to Chatsworth - beating other wonderful mansions like Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace.
A panel of experts had chosen a short list of ten homes for the vote
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by Radio Times readers and viewers of the Channel Five series "Britain's Finest Stately Homes". In the end, only Chatsworth scored better than Erddig as thousands voted for the house near Wrexham, where the Yorke family and their servants lived for 250 years.
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The close relationship between family and staff is one of the delights of Erddig, which is often described as one of Britain's "best kept secrets". Visitors are intrigued by the 'upstairs, downstairs' atmosphere evocative of times gone by, and the large walled garden that has been beautifully restored to its 18th-century design.
There are also extensive park and woodland walks to enjoy and visitors to Erddig this year will be treated to a particularly wonderful sight - teams of shirehorses working as they used to years ago,
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hauling timber out of the woodlands and doing a better job than tractors.
National Trust staff at Erddig expect that Guinness, Thomas, Emma, Belladonna, Winston and Sammy will soon be familiar names to everyone visiting the estate. They are the six shire horses who are now being trained up for estate work. They can be seen these days hitched up to chains and pulling an old tractor wheel behind them.
"It means getting them used to pulling something," said the Trust's community link worker at Erddig, Sue Jones. "It's not the weight, but getting accustomed to the equipment. We also need to make sure that they can't be spooked by anything, a passing car or a barking dog. They've got to be bomb proof!"
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Duke, a brown and white Welsh cob, will also be hard at work, carrying up to six people at a time on carriage trips round the estate - the tours are already a great success. "It all started with a
desire to get people out into the park and into the woodlands," explains Sue. "But using the shire horses to haul out timber isn't just a matter of tradition - they are better than tractors at working the steep pieces of land."
Some of the horses have been at Erddig for a few years and one is owned by a tenant on the estate. "They help bring the property alive," says Sue. "We get more people coming back time after time to see them and to take the carriage rides."
There are many special events at the Trust's stately homes throughout Wales in 2005. Click here for more information. For details of all National Trust gardens in Wales, please visit the National Trust website at: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/placestovisit.
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