English Country

Fülszöveg

English Country
Comfortable, timeworn, eccentric, elegant—this paradoxical blend of qualities is the special province of the English country house. Blenheim, Chatsworth, Castle Howard, and other grand houses on the tourist circuit have been much photographed and celebrated. But the truth about English country life lies behind more modest doors, in houses that have never been open to the public: the manor houses, rectories, farmhouses, and small privately owned estates glimpsed briefly beyond the fields and hedges that punctuate the English landscape. Many of these have been in the same family for generations; others are lived in by people who understand that it is the accumulation of the fragments of family history that transforms a house into a home. Writer Caroline Seebohm and photographer Christopher Simon Sykes both grew up in such houses. They reveal the real-life beauty, romance, nostalgia, and originality behind these walls, taking the reader where few strangers have been... Tovább

Fülszöveg

English Country
Comfortable, timeworn, eccentric, elegant—this paradoxical blend of qualities is the special province of the English country house. Blenheim, Chatsworth, Castle Howard, and other grand houses on the tourist circuit have been much photographed and celebrated. But the truth about English country life lies behind more modest doors, in houses that have never been open to the public: the manor houses, rectories, farmhouses, and small privately owned estates glimpsed briefly beyond the fields and hedges that punctuate the English landscape. Many of these have been in the same family for generations; others are lived in by people who understand that it is the accumulation of the fragments of family history that transforms a house into a home. Writer Caroline Seebohm and photographer Christopher Simon Sykes both grew up in such houses. They reveal the real-life beauty, romance, nostalgia, and originality behind these walls, taking the reader where few strangers have been before.
English Country opens with an anecdotal history of the development of the country house, illuminating the mysteries of architectural styles, the complexities of class structure, and the sexual politics that have all played a role in the decorating of English rooms. Dogs and horses receive their due as does that greatest of English achievements, the country garden. English Country then takes an in-depth look at eleven private houses, most of them never before photographed. From an Elizabethan jewel-box that survives in almost feudal serenity to a farmhouse in Devon, nestling in sheep-covered hills; from a manor house with a musical history stretching back to the time of Bach to a seventeenth-century architectural gem built on the foundations of a priory, each has a different character. Room by room, garden by garden, these houses have fascinating stories to tell, while presenting ideas about style that are the envy of imitators.
(Continued on backfiap) Vissza