Voting campaign for Byron's home

Parts of Newstead Abbey are crumbling

The former home of poet Lord Byron is to open for free on Tuesday to mark its appearance on the BBC's Restoration.

Newstead Abbey, near Nottingham, is one of 21 buildings around the UK featured on the programme, all of which are in dire need of work to revamp them.

The overall winner of Restoration will get a £2.5m Heritage Lottery grant.

A Vote for Newstead campaign has taken off across Nottinghamshire with hundreds of local firms and organisations pledging their support.

In Nottingham, banners and posters giving the hotline number have gone up.

Bears, wolves and tortoises

Thousands of people will also receive a reminder to vote for Newstead on e-mail messages via their workplace.

On Tuesday Newstead is up against Bawdsey Radar Station, Suffolk, and Birmingham's Old Grammar School vying for the Midlands vote.

A statue of Virgin Mary on the West Front is breaking up

Built as the Priory of St. Mary by Henry II, Newstead Abbey originally housed a community of ordained priests who led a monastic life, devoting themselves to worship, study and meditation.

It remained that way for 400 years until Henry VIII gave it to the Byron family.

The last Byron to own the building was the poet who inherited it from his great-uncle, the "Wicked Lord".

By then it had been stripped of its contents and was in a state of disrepair and the poet lived in only part of the building.

At this time he shared the abbey with his array of pets including a bear, a wolf, tortoises, dogs and a hedgehog.

In 1817 Byron sold Newstead to Thomas Wildman who spent his fortune restoring the house.

From then it went through a number of owners before ending up in the hands of the Nottingham Corporation.

Restoration is on BBC Two at 2100 BST on Tuesday.