By reading the architectural features of a house, we can get a sense of its date, how it has evolved, and how it has been shaped by its inhabitants, from such simple items as windows, doors, chimneys, and staircases. Abundantly illustrated with vintage and contemporary photographs, this book will be a joy for all those who want to learn more about architecture and design, Britain’s heritage, and the essential characteristics of its classic country houses.

How to Read a Country House

Arts & Photography

Musson, Jeremy

Architecture

Ebury Press

This volume covers some of the finest landscape and architecture in southern England, much of it set within the South Downs National Park. The county’s small towns and villages feature a pleasing mix of stone, timber, and brick houses of every period. Among numerous atmospheric country houses are the Tudor ruins of Cowdray, the Elizabethan mansion at Parham, and the French-inspired Petworth in its great park, famously captured in Turner’s paintings. On the grandest scale is the mighty Arundel Castle, seat of the Duke of Norfolk, while Chichester, the only city in West Sussex, boasts one of the country’s most important 12th-century cathedrals. Among many major ecclesiastical and educational establishments built in the 19th century, none is more impressive than Lancing College set high above the coast. New research accompanies 130 specially commissioned color photographs in this authoritative and expert guide.

Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)

Nairn, Ian

Williamson, Elizabeth

Hudson, Tim

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

A personal tour of twenty of the UK’s most beguiling houses in this much loved area of western England. Author and architectural historian, Jeremy Musson, and Cotswolds-based photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas, offer privileged access to twenty houses, from castles and manor houses, as well as eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mansions, revealing their history, architecture and interiors, in the company of their devoted owners. In the footsteps of artists and designers including Humphry and George Repton, and Victorian visionary, William Morris, who inspired the arts and crafts movement, and others such as Detmar Blow, Norman Jewson, Clough Williams-Ellis and Oliver Hill, we find a series of fascinating country houses of different sizes and atmospheres, which have shaped the English identity. Each house has their own story, but their distinctive honey-coloured stone walls, set amongst rolling hills, in different ways express the ideals of English life. Most of the houses included here are privately owned and not usually open to the public. In this beautifully produced book, they can now be enjoyed through the eyes of their owners, as well as an experienced architectural historian, and an award-winning photographer.

Secret Houses of the Cotswolds

Photography & Video

Frances Lincoln

Country houses were reliant on an intricate hierarchy of servants, each of whom provided an essential skill. Up and Down Stairs brings to life this hierarchy, showing how large numbers of people lived together under strict segregation and how sometimes this segregation was broken, as with the famous marriage of a squire to his dairymaid at Uppark. Jeremy Musson captures the voices of the servants who ran these vast houses and made them work. From unpublished memoirs to letters, wages, and newspaper articles, he pieces together their daily lives from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. The story of domestic servants is inseparable from the story of the country house as an icon of power, civilization, and luxury. This is particularly true with the great estates such as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Burghley and Wilton. Jeremy Musson looks at how these grand houses were, for centuries, admired and imitated around the world.

Up and Down Stairs: The History of the Country House Servant

Parenting & Relationships

John Murray

A highly detailed look at the English country house interior, offering unprecedented access to England’s finest rooms. In this splendid book, renowned historian Jeremy Musson explores the interiors and decoration of the great country houses of England, offering a brilliantly detailed presentation of the epitome of style in each period of the country house, including the great Jacobean manor house, the Georgian mansion, and the Gothic Revival castle. For the first time, houses known worldwide for their exquisite architecture and decoration--including Wilton, Chatsworth, and Castle Howard--are seen in unprecedented detail. With intimate views of fabric, gilding, carving, and furnishings, the book will be a source of inspiration to interior designers, architects, and home owners, and a must-have for anglophiles and historic house enthusiasts. The fifteen houses included represent the key periods in the history of English country house decoration and cover the major interior fashions and styles. Stunning new color photographs by Paul Barker-who was given unparalleled access to the houses-offer readers new insights into the enduring English country house style. Supplementing these are unique black-and-white images from the archive of the esteemed Country Life magazine. Among the aspects of these that the book covers are: paneling, textile hangings (silks to cut velvet), mural painting, plasterwork, stone carving, gilding, curtains, pelmets, heraldic decoration, classical imagery, early upholstered furniture, furniture designed by Thomas Chippendale, carved chimney-pieces, lass, use of sculpture, tapestry, carpets, picture hanging, collecting of art and antiques, impact of Grand Tour taste, silver, use of marble, different woods, the importance of mirror glass, boulle work, English Baroque style, Palladian style, neo-Classical style, rooms designed by Robert Adam, Regency, Gothic Revival taste, Baronial style, French 18th century style, and room types such as staircases, libraries, dining rooms, parlors, bedrooms, picture galleries, entrance halls and sculpture galleries. Houses covered include: Hatfield - early 1600s (Jacobean); Wilton - 1630/40s (Inigo Jones); Boughton - 1680/90s (inspired by Versailles); Chatsworth -1690/early 1700s (Baroque); Castle Howard - early 1700s (Vanbrugh); Houghton - 1720s (Kent); Holkham - 1730s-50s (Palladian); Syon Park - 1760s (Adam); Harewood - 1760s/70s (neo-Classical); Goodwood - 1790s/1800s (neo-Classical/Regency); Regency at Chatsworth/Wilton/C Howard etc - 1820/30s; Waddesdon Manor - 1870/80ss (French Chateau style); Arundel Castle -1880s/90s (Gothic Revival); Berkeley Castle - 1920/30s (period recreations and antique collections); Parham House - 1920s/30s (period restorations and antique collections). The range is from the early 17th century to present day, drawn from the authenticated interiors of fifteen great country houses, almost all still in private hands and occupied as private residences still today. The book shows work by twentieth-century designers who have helped evolve the country house look, including Nancy Lancaster, David Hicks, Colefax &amp; Fowler, and David Mlinaric

English Country House Interiors

Rizzoli

A highly detailed look at the most accomplished English country house interiors, exemplifying English decorating at its best. The English drawing room, a formal place within a house of status where family and honored guests could retire from the more public arena, is one of the most important rooms in an English country house, and thus great attention has been paid to preserving the decoration of this most elegant of spaces: the center of life in the English countryside and the epitome of English country house decoration. This book offers privileged access to fifty of the finest drawing rooms of country houses and historic townhouses—many still in private hands—including Althorp, Attingham, and Knepp Castle. Through these sumptuous rooms, readers experience a history of English decorating from the sixteenth century to the present day, including the work of design legends such as David Hicks, Nancy Lancaster, John Fowler, and David Mlinaric. Specially commissioned photographs capture the entirety of each room, as well as details of furniture, architectural elements, artwork, collections, and textiles, creating a visually seductive book that will inspire interior designers and homeowners interested in the widely popular classic English look.

The Drawing Room: English Country House Decoration

The definitive book on the most influential English country house architect and designer. This beautifully produced book celebrates the work of Robert Adam, the great eighteenth-century architect who influenced generations by stamping his distinctive neoclassical aesthetic vision on the English country house interior. Lavish new photography provides a deeply visual exploration of Adam’s most important surviving country houses, to which the author and photographer gained unparalleled access. Included are magnificent country houses such as Syon House and Harewood House—styled and inspired by the ideal of the neoclassical—as well as Adam’s castle-style Mellerstain and town houses such as Home House— all captured in splendid detail. Original Adam design drawings, from Sir John Soane’s Museum, illustrate the boldness of planning, color, and creative interpretation of Adam’s domestic interiors. A biographical and contextual account of Adam’s life and work describes his unique design process, his patrons, and the legacy of his design achievement. This richly illustrated volume will appeal to designers and homeowners as well as traditional architecture enthusiasts, promising to become an important addition to any architecture and interior design library.

Robert Adam: Country House Design, Decoration & the Art of Elegance

This exciting new book on British country houses offers an unusual and magnificent look at the lifestyle, architecture, and interior design of the country house of the British Isles. From Brideshead to Downton Abbey, the country house is a subject of fantasy and curiosity, as well as a rich resource to explore the history of great architecture and decoration and the lives of landowners and those who made the houses work. With hundreds of photographs from the National Trust, and others from public and private collections, this visually lavish volume draws back the curtain on important historic homes in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. At the same time it reveals the complex stories of these interiors, both grand and hidden, from great halls, libraries and entryways to the kitchens and stables and gardens. Locations featured include Knole, Cragside, Castle Howard, Chatsworth, Polesden Lacey, Petworth, Bodiam Castle, Blenheim, Longleat, and dozens more. An insightful essay by renowned British author and historian David Cannadine explores how the idea of the country house has changed over the past forty years. Additional essays reflect on how changing twentieth century values have impacted the country house, with contributions by writers and scholars such as Sarah Callander-Beckett on the private house, Dr. Madge Dresser on slavery and the country house, and Dr. Oliver Cox on the 'Downton Abbey 'effect.' The texts are woven around extensive picture essays, introduced and curated by country house specialist Jeremy Musson, which look at the identity and image of British country houses of all kinds and the stories they contain.

The Country House: Past, Present, Future: Great Houses of The British Isles

CANNADINE, David

In Pursuit of The Best Gun: a bicentennial history of Westley Richards & Co 1812-2012 written by Jeremy Musson is a wide ranging and richly illustrated history of the oldest of the prestigious English gun making companies. It has been based in Birmingham since it was founded and has played an important role in the development of the shotgun and the sporting and military rifle, and is especially famous for such features as the Monkey Tail carbine, an early breech loader, the Anson and Deeley box lock which marked the transition to the effective hammerless gun, and the hand detachable lock (droplock). Guns of Westley Richards & Co. have been owned and used by some of the most famous sporting shots, from Frederick Selous to Count Alfred Potocki and from the Maharaja of Patiala to Ernest Hemingway. Still patronised by clients from around the world today, including royalty, Westley Richards & Co. has had a remarkable resurgence in the past few decades which has helped it retain a worldwide reputation, 200 years after its founding.

In Pursuit of the Best Gun: Westley Richards 1812-2012

Westley Richards & Co

•An illustrated guide to the buildings and gardens that have helped shape the identity, spirit and reputation of Emmanuel College, Cambridge •Sumptuously illustrated with new photography from a leading architectural photographer •Fascinating for anyone with links to the college, or a general interest in architectural history Founded in 1584 on the site of a medieval Dominican priory, Emmanuel has a remarkable history as one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge, but is also a significant ensemble of buildings and gardens. The late seventeenth-century Chapel, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, stands at Emmanuel's core and has become one of the iconic images of Cambridge. Over the centuries, the original structures and the open spaces have been altered and added to, shaped by Fellows and Masters, donors and dons. In turn, these buildings and gardens have helped shape the identity, spirit and reputation of the College and of generations of students. Illustrated with stunning new photography by leading architectural photographer Will Pryce, this book is a journey that takes the reader to the heart of the historic, social and aesthetic character of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Contents: An introduction: A welcome Chapter one: The House that Came before Chapter two: Mildmay's Acorn and his Oaks Chapter three: Temple of Learning Renewed Chapter four: On Classic Ground Chapter five: A Changing Horizon Chapter six: Out in the World Follow @EmmaCambridge on Twitter (4,600 followers).

Between Two Worlds: An Architectural History of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

History

Europe

Scala Arts Publishers, Inc.

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