The English country house - Gervase Jackson-Stops

Drawing from houses from all over England--from Castle Howard in Yorkshire to Stourhead in Wiltshire, from Cotehele in Cornwall to Houghton on the Norfolk coast--Gervase Jackson Stops and photographer James Pipkin capture the decorative and architectural splendor of the English Country House. Changing Styles are traced, from medieval manors, to the Baroque, the Palladian, Rococo and Neoclassical styles of the golden age of the house--the Georgian period. The work of architects such as Inigo Jones, Nicholas Hawksmore and Robert Adams is discussed, as well as the ornament contained within their creations--the silver, the carpets, the paintings and the clocks. From hall to staircase, dining room to drawing room, bedchamber to dressing room, library to chapel, kitchen to long gallery, every room and it's interior decoration is described with rare sensitivity and an instinct for easily missed detail.