Best National Trust Scones 2013-2019

The National Trust Scone Blog is six years old today! I can hardly believe it:

• 196 properties visited!
• 76 have delivered a 5 out of 5 top-rated scone!

I started this project because we had joined the National Trust but failed to actually go anywhere. If I write something down I remember it, so I decided to start a blog and force myself to visit a few National Trust properties and actually learn something.

So, in time-honoured fashion, here is the National Trust Scone Blog Birthday Honours List - the 76 properties with 5-star scones, in reverse order of when I visited:

• Florence Court - located near a mountain where a legendary horse appears every July to talk to people (and have a scone I hope, as they're good).
• The Argory - you can get there by canoe but however you get there, make sure you have one of their superb scones. 
• Dudmaston - there was a wand workshop going on when I visited and the scones had  indeed been touched by magic.
• Kinver Edge and the Rock Houses - people lived in these caves until the 1960s and although rock buns may have been more apposite, the scones were super.
• Arlington Court - see the house, visit the National Trust Carriage Museum, but definitely don't miss the excellent scones.
• Dunster Castle - a very old estate with a working water mill, a leather room, and very good scones.
• Watersmeet - the beautiful place that inspired me to keep going with the National Trust Scone Blog did not disappoint. Excellent scones.
• Mottistone Gardens - Benedict Cumberbatch wasn't there but we did find some very superb scones.
• Kinder, Edale, and the Dark Peak - the Pennypot Cafe is next door to Edale station. Kinder Scout is not. But we all know which part of the property is most important.
• Erddig - donkeys, a thief housekeeper who stole £30,000, and fantastic scones can all be found at Erddig.
• Oxburgh Hall - everybody loves a moat and everybody good scones. Oxburgh has both.
• Croft Castle - Owain Glyndŵr may be buried under the floor but they don't bury the scone baking talent at this cosy castle.
• Nunnington Hall - I went to try and solve a mysterious peacock murder case and found some very excellent scones.
• The Workhouse - I was certainly tempted to say "please, sir, I want some more" but I restrained myself, although the scones were excellent.
• Shugborough Estate - the ancestral home of society photographer Patrick Lichfield was a picture! Ha ha!
• Chirk Castle - murder, scandal, adultery, violence, great scones...it's all going on at Chirk.
• Longshaw Estate and Eastern Moors - I though the mud might defeat me but no - I finally found my Peak District scone and marvellous it was too.
• Mount Stewart - its one-time owner, Viscount Castlereagh, was none too popular, but the scones were certainly popular with me.
• Peckover House & Garden - Lonely Planet has just announced that a cream tea at Peckover is one of the top eating experiences in the world! I concur!
• Clumber Park - it might have lost its house to the demolition men but Clumber offers beautiful gardens, a beautiful lake, and beautiful scones!
• The Needles Old Battery - chalk rocks, guns, secret missile testing. And now - outstanding scones!
• Wicken Fen - home to 9,000 species of wildlife, flora, fauna and a first class species of scone! Bravo.
• Berrington Hall - even Capability Brown couldn't improve the scones at Berrington Hall - they were berri-good!
• Tyntesfield - maybe one day someone will describe Tyntesfield without saying "the man who built it made his money from Peruvian bird poo" but that day isn't today. The scones were a bird poo-free zone.
• Sudbury Hall - a great house AND the Museum of Childhood starring Sooty and Sindy AND an outstanding scone! What more do you want from life.
• Melford Hall - famed for its celebrity resident, the original Jemima Puddleduck! Her views on scones are not known.
• Wallington - the former home of Charles Edward Trevelyan, the third most hated man in Ireland (after Oliver Cromwell and Thierry Henry), who was name-checked in The Fields of Athenry.
• Belton House - the kids book and 80s TV show, Moondial, was set at Belton! And when I tweeted that I'd been there, the actor who played Tom responded! Fantastic.
• Felbrigg Hall - poor old William Frederick 'Mad' Windham - all he wanted to do was dress up as a train guard and blow a whistle on the station platform at inopportune moments. Instead he ran up huge debts and lost Felbrigg. Amazing scone. 
• Hidcote - a beautiful garden built by "a dull little man" according to James Lees-Milne but we loved it AND we loved the scones!
• Plas Newydd - a fantastic scone on Anglesey! We only really went there to see the Victorian dude who dressed like Noddy Holder 50 years before Nodders was born!
• Dyrham Park - superb scones AND free 17th century hot chocolate (the recipe is from the 17th century, not the actual hot chocolate)!
• Trengwainton Garden - the 5th NT scone we'd eaten in 48 hours during our Tour of Cornwall and it was FAB!
• Trerice - a quiet little manor house near the not-so-quiet town of Newquay, with AMAZING scones!
• Trelissick - the house may be relatively new to the NT but they've certainly got to grips with the scones!
• Boscastle - a little Cornish fishing village that was almost washed away in 2004 - unusual scones but absolutely top-rate!
• Acorn Bank - the third top-class scone on the Spring Tour to the Lake District!
• Sizergh Castle - amazing scone AND a copy of Wham!'s Greatest Hits!
• Wordsworth House - I was moved to compose a poem about the Wordsworth House scone - I expect a call about being Poet Laureate any day!
• Saltram - everything went wrong on our first trip of 2016, apart from the scone!
• Fountains Abbey - it was in the video for Maid of Orleans by OMD! And it had fantastic scones!
• Lanhydrock - our first foray into Cornwall and we were not disappointed! Fantastic scone!
• Biddulph Grange Garden - they had a singing tree and a golden water buffalo but nothing could upstage the scones!
• Nostell Priory - one of the best properties EVER with THREE types of scone!
• Coughton Court - 7 of the 13 Gunpowder Plotters were Throckmortons! Somehow they kept hold of Coughton and are still there today! 
• Tredegar House - fantastic scones AND they keep a Dalek in the stables (Doctor Who is filmed there)! 
• Anglesey Abbey - they have a working flour mill! You can buy bags of flour that you transform into scones that won't be as good as the ones here!
• Montacute House - they filmed Wolf Hall here! If only Anne Boleyn had been able to bake scones like these, it could all have turned out differently!
• Goddards - brilliant scones at the house once owned by Noel Terry, of Chocolate Orange fame! There used to be a Terry's Chocolate Apple as well! 
• Beningbrough Hall - spectacular works of art (and a few pictures on loan from the National Portrait Gallery as well, boom, boom!)
• Sissinghurst Castle - did you see the scones, Orlando? They were great - and fantastic gardens too, in the former home of Vita Sackville-West!
• South Foreland Lighthouse - excellent sconeage in this 'shining' example of a National Trust property HA HA! 
• The White Cliffs of Dover - I really was inspired to ransack the Vera Lynn back catalogue and sing "we'll meet again" to the WCoD scone - it was that good. 
• Speke Hall - it has the River Mersey, it has a priest hole, it has a baker on Twitter, it has fantastic scones, I LOVED it!
• Studland Beach - famous for the UK's most popular naturist beach, for inspiring Noddy's Toytown, and now for very good scones!
• A la Ronde - a round house full of trinkets AND fantastic scones, what more do you want from life? 
• Upton House and Gardens - a lot of pictures, an outdoor swimming pool, and truly excellent scones!
• Treasurer's House, York - they had a Christmas pudding scone with brandy butter that I literally still dream about!
• Hinton Ampner - lots of sheep and fantastic scones!
• Uppark - burned to the ground a few years ago while it was open to visitors, but now restored and serving very excellent scones!
• Stowe - it costs £30,000 a year to attend Stowe school - I'd rather spend that on scones, personally!
• Charlecote Park - William Shakespeare was once caught stealing a scone from Charlecote Park. Did I say scone? I meant deer.
• Bateman's - "Well I'm the king of the sconers/the tea-room VIP", as Rudyard Kipling would have written if he'd had scones at Batemans!
• Claremont Landscape Garden - more of a park than a garden but who's counting - the scones were fantastic!
• Standen - tests proved that the Standen scone was genetically closer to a cloud than a baked foodstuff!
• Nymans - another place that burned down (before the National Trust was involved), now serving amazing scones!
• Waddesdon Manor - they have a mechanical elephant that flaps its ears at Waddesdon but as an attraction it's no match for the top-class scones!
• Scotney Castle - the scones were EPIC. Scotney also had a Banana and Walnut Scone of the Month and Richard Gere, who filmed Yanks there!
• Dunwich Heath - they had 20 TYPES OF SCONE at the Sconeathon we attended! Sticky Toffee, Chocolate Orange, Apple & Cinnamon, Malteser...!
• Morden Hall Park - big, warm, and glazed. 'Morden enough' to warrant a five out of five (ha ha ha! Sorry.)
• Sutton House - Sir Ralph Sadleir of Wolf Hall fame built Sutton House - go along and see them bring out the sconies!
• Quarry Bank Mill - amazing scones in one of the most fascinating NT properties ever - you can even buy a tea towel made in the cotton mill!
• Flatford Bridge Cottage - we helped bake the scones at Flatford but we gave them 5 because they were mince pie scones and they were ruddy delicious! 
• Winkworth Arboretum - a very understated place - not a fridge magnet to be had - but serving fantastic scones!
• Houghton Mill - the Scone Blogger was very hungover but she soldiered on and tried the scone made from home-milled flour, which was DELICIOUS!
• Brownsea Island - we didn't see any red squirrels, which shows that they don't have very good taste as there was a Sconeathon on the day we visited!
• Bodiam Castle - our very first 5 out of 5, setting the benchmark for all!  

You can see all 168 scones on Pinterest. 

There's also a lovely National Trust Book of Scones, which is available in NT shops or on the internet.

Huge thanks, as ever, to all of the lovely Sconepals for your ongoing support - keep sharing your National Trust scone sightings, either on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. I love them. 

I have committed to finishing this quest by December 2020 so eyes down, napkins up, and let's do this.