Click to make an online donation.

	For the children who visit us:
		to provide quizzes, games and trails so that they can both learn from and enjoy their time with us; buying the supplies and storage equipment will cost about £550
		to equip the school Room with new lightweight benches, desks and storage boxes the total cost being £3,000
	For the many visitors:
		to mount a special exhibition on the history of the house's restoration - £850
		to improve the display of the memorabilia of George Washington and his family in the Washington room, total cost £2,500, individual cases etc ranging from £350 to £850
		to buy costumes and reproduction artefacts to dress the house, so that it provides more interest and information for our visitors, individual items from £45 to £1,000
		to produce a booklet to record part of the tour provided by our guides on the origin of some common sayings so that visitors have a memento to take away - £2,500
	To improve the gardens:
		to redesign and replant two flower beds to bring them back to their natural role at the side of the orchard - £850
		more benches in the glorious grounds so that our visitors can rest and enjoy the rural tranquillity of our setting in the heart of England at a cost of £800 per bench
	To protect historical value:
		to conserve paintings, samplers, chairs and other artefacts within the house
		to buy appropriate storage covers and boxes for our huge collection of historical documents £950

Click to make an online donation.

Can you help us with a donation?

Leaving a memorial

A bequest can be a memorial. Sulgrave Manor understands about memorials - in one way, we exist as a memorial and we have, on the site, memorials to people who helped us when we began in the 1920s.

But we are a lively and vigorous memorial - 11,000 primary school children visit us each year to learn about their past; American tourists make a pilgrimage to the ancestral home; adult education groups come to explore the beautiful manor house and grounds. We are the living, thriving evidence of the resilience of rural England.

By leaving us a legacy, you could play a part in this too. If desired and appropriate, a bequest will be acknowledged by a plaque, on a list, in a memorial book. And those left behind can be confident that the bequest will honour the memory of the departed.

Paying our way - why do we need help?

Sulgrave Manor is a very fortunate house. Many similar estates, dependent on agriculture, have disappeared over the last two hundred years. The Manor went downhill throughout the 19th century and was described by a visitor in 1890 as "a place that has lost its ancient dignity, and is now frowsy and neglected" with "nettles, docks and thistles as the only things that flourish."

The Manor was rescued, for the first time, in the early twentieth century by gifts from the public on both sides of the Atlantic because it is the home of the ancestors of the first President of the United States. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals and of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America, the house was refurbished and refurnished as a permanent memorial to the network of links of family, friendship, experience, values and philosophy that bind the peoples of the United Kingdom and the United States together.

Open to the public since 1921, the Manor survived for some years on the funds built up but then had to begin to bridge the gap between the dwindling returns from investments and the spiralling costs of labour in the post-war world. Even continuing generous support from the National Society of Colonial Dames of America could not - and can not - provide a secure future.

Click to make an online donation.

Sulgrave Manor began to have to earn its own living - a struggle which continues today.

The second rescue came, in the 1980s, with the introduction of an educational programme for schools, bringing thousands of young people to the site on study days to experience the life of our Tudor ancestors. That programme continues strongly today but budgetary restrictions on education authorities and the other imperatives of school life these days mean that there is little scope for expanding the programme or increasing the charges to do much more than cover the costs.

The third rescue came at the turn of this century with splendid new buildings, financed largely by the Heritage Lottery Fund, allowing the Manor to increase the number of schools benefiting from the educational programme and also to earn money, at weekends and in the school holidays by hosting civil weddings, family parties and so on. This revenue too continues to help.

With a small, dedicated staff, the Manor strives to bridge the budgetary gap which afflicts all houses of this type. Held in trust for the peoples of the United Kingdom and the United States, it is entirely independent, backed by no governmental or other large organisational funds. To do new things - and to preserve all our old things - we need new money.