TWO rooms at a historic house in Ozleworth have reopened to visitors for the first time since burst pipes affected them.

About half of the rooms at Newark Park were impacted by the leak on March 4 and 11 large dehumidifiers have been used to slowly dry out the house.

Floorboards have been lifted and fans used to move the damp air to the dehumidifiers – with positive results already being seen by the home's custodians, the National Trust.

The Drawing Room has now reopened with information about the leak and how the house and its contents were saved from worse damage and the Garden Room will also be open as a new home for its shop.

With the house closed, National Trust staff and volunteers have had to adapt.

Volunteers who usually work as house guides have been offering help outside the house, including a new architecture tour looking at the exterior of the house and various phases of building from the Tudor hunting lodge to the present building.

The garden tour has also been shortened to one hour to allow people time to take both tours if they wish.

"We’re an independent charity so we are really indebted to our volunteers for supporting us and adapting so well to the challenging circumstances," said Stefanie van Stokkom, operations manager at the home.

"The house itself is slowly drying out but it will take some time.

"Our 11 dehumidifiers are whirring away all the time.

"The humidity levels in the air are now normal which means furniture and other items in the collection are safe.

"We are using a meter to measure the moisture levels in the timbers of the floors which are also coming down slowly.

"Once we know the floor boards and joists are dried enough, we can remove the dehumidifiers from those rooms."

Mould has been found in one of the bedrooms which is thought to be a legacy of a previous historic mould outbreak that has restarted in the damp air following the leak.

A test patch has been cleaned and the mould has not returned so the trust's conservators say they are optimistic that it can be properly contained.

Furniture and the home's collection was moved quickly out of the way of the leak on the day it happened and has been sorted and carefully stored in the dry rooms where conservators have been doing condition checks.

Stefanie added: "It has been a difficult few weeks since the leak, but our teams here have worked hard, we’ve had great support from our visitors and we know there will be no long term damage to the house as a result."

A date has still not been set for when any more of the rooms will reopen for the public.