History and landscape - Lydia Greeves

The Guide has been described as the National Trust's bible - and indeed it is. This latest edition takes a larger, squarer format, to do full justice to the Trust's illustrious collection of colour photographs, and to showcase recent acquisitions such as the Gothic wonder of Tyntesfield, John Lennon's childhood home Mendips, and William Morris' Arts and Crafts Red House. Magnificent landscapes, including the breathtaking coast of Cornwall, Snowdonia, the Peak District, and the lunar scenery of Strangford Lough, are set beside the Trust's great gardens such as Sissinghurst Castle in Kent and Stourhead Landscape Garden in Wiltshire. The Trust's country houses of course feature in all their varied beauty - from the Tudor splendour of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire through to the magnificent Victoriana at Cragside in Northumberland. Not everything is on such a grand scale; Lydia Greeves describes T.E. Lawrence's modest cottage at Clouds Hill in Dorset, a spade mill in Northern Ireland and even a duck decoy at Boarstall in Buckinghamshire.