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Competition: design a mega mansion for your chance to win a £100 goody bag!

Learn about some of England’s great houses and then come up with a design for your own mega mansion. Download our template and then use your imagination to create the most impressive home in history!

Image: Exterior of Wrest Park in Bedfordshire

Historical homes

English Heritage looks after lots of impressive houses that were designed for their wealthy owners. Here are some examples that you could use as inspiration for your own design.

Wrest Park in Bedfordshire (pictured) was built in the 1830s for Thomas Philip de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey, but it was designed to look like a huge French chateau from the 1700s.

Further south, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert created their dream seaside home at Osborne on the Isle of Wight, which even had its own private beach!

Or you might want to take inspiration from Witley Court in Worcestershire. It began as a medieval manor house, then was expanded into a mansion during the Jacobean period in the early 1600s. Over the centuries, extra parts were added to the house until the house reached its peak in the 1850s, when William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, lived there. It took an army of servants to look after the house and the family.

Image: Art deco interior of Eltham Palace in London

Dressed to impress

Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire really impressed its guests – who wouldn’t want to live in a castle? In the 1600s it was transformed by William Cavendish, who became the first Duke of Newcastle, into a grand home, complete with fancy murals on the walls. It was so posh that even King Charles I came to visit.

Another amazing house is Eltham Palace in London (pictured). It was once a royal palace, dating back to the 14th century, but in the 1930s millionaires Stephen and Virginia Courtauld moved in and transformed the building into a trendy art deco mansion. They introduced lots of modern technology, including a loudspeaker system for broadcasting vinyl records and even a centralised vacuum cleaner!

Image: Children drawing with their parents

Design your dream home

Now it’s your turn to design the best house ever! We’d like you to create a stunning stately home using our template (please ask a grown-up to download this and print it out for you).

Decorate your mega mansion however you like, using felt-tip pens, coloured pencils or paint. The template folds out, so think what you’d like the outside of your dream home to look like, as well as what you’d like to include inside it. It can be anything you want – whether it’s a cool slide to go down between floors, a room with a massive trampoline in it, an indoor football pitch or maybe a huge library with a secret door!

Download your template
Image: Child taking photo of drawing with phone

How to enter

Once you’ve designed your perfect pad, you can enter it into our competition for a chance of winning a goody bag of prizes worth £100 from our online shop. Ask an adult to scan or take a clear photograph of it and send it to us at membersmagazine@ourmedia.co.uk, along with your full name and age, and your parent or guardian’s membership number, name and address.

Please make sure you have your parent or guardian’s permission to enter, and check the terms and conditions below. Entries must be in by midnight on 31 March 2022. Good luck!

Enter now

Terms and Conditions

  • Terms and Conditions
    • The Promoter is: The English Heritage Trust, incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 7447221 and charity number 1140351 whose registered office is at The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, SN2 2EH (‘English Heritage’).
    • These terms and conditions apply to the ‘Design a Mega Mansion Competition’ (‘the Competition’), running from Monday 7 March 2022 (the ‘Opening Date’) until midnight Thursday 31 March 2022 (the ‘Closing Date’).
    • All Competition entries received after the Closing Date shall be automatically disqualified.
    • No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.
    • The Competition is open to English Heritage Young Members resident in the United Kingdom. Entrants under the age of 13 will need permission from a parent or guardian (aged 18 or over).
    • Employees or contractors of English Heritage, any person directly or indirectly involved in English Heritage or the running of the Competition, or their direct family members are not eligible for the prize.
    • There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this Competition.
    • By entering this Competition, each entrant is agreeing to be bound by these terms and conditions.
    • Entries must be sent as a scanned or photographed file with clear details of the entrant’s name and age, and a parent or guardians name, email, address and membership number. Entries submitted in any other way will not be accepted.
    • The winning entrant will be contacted via email to the email address provided.
    • Obscene or inappropriate entries will not be accepted and English Heritage reserves the right to reject any entries for any reason at its sole discretion.
    • Entries must not infringe the copyright of anyone else and entrants will hold English Heritage harmless from any claims in relation to their entry alleging that the entry infringes the personal or proprietary right of any other person.
    • Only one entry will be accepted per person.  Multiple entries from the same person will be disqualified.
    • English Heritage reserves the right to cancel or amend the Competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of its control.  Any changes to the Competition will be notified to entrants by English Heritage.
    • The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
    • The winner will be contacted by Friday 8 April 2022. If a Competition winner cannot be contacted or does not claim their prize within 14 days of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the Competition winner and pick a replacement Competition winner.
    • The Competition winner’s name may be published on English Heritage’s website and social media channels in a shortened form.
    • English Heritage reserves the right to substitute any prize for one of equal or greater value.
    • The Competition prize is as stated and no cash or other alternatives will be offered. The Competition prize is not transferable.
    • The Competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by English law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.
    • This Competition is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other social network. You are providing your information to English Heritage and not to any other party.
    • The information provided will be used in conjunction with the following Privacy Policy found at: www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/our-people/our-policies/privacy-policy/. The personal data you provide will only be used for the purposes of the Competition and will be destroyed once the Competition has ended.
    • English Heritage shall have the right, at its sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify these terms and conditions, such change shall be effective immediately upon posting to this webpage.

     

    The Competition Prize:

    • One entrant will receive a goody bag of items to the value of £100, selected from the English Heritage online shop.
    • The Competition winner will be chosen by a panel of judges appointed by English Heritage.
    • No cash alternative to the prize will be offered.