English Country

Sixty-two stunning houses in a range of architectural styles spanning seven centuries are brought to life through glorious imagery from the photography library of Country Life magazine.

Based on the author's Slade lectures given at Oxford University in 1975-76.

Politics has always been at the heart of the English country house, in its design and construction, as well as in the activities and experiences of those who lived in and visited these places. As Britain moved from an agrarian to an imperial economy over the course of the eighteenth century, the home mirrored the social change experienced in the public sphere. This collection focuses on the relationship between the country house and the mutable nature of British politics in the eighteenth century. Essays explore the country house as a stage for politicking, a vehicle for political advancement, a symbol of party allegiance or political values, and a setting for appropriate lifestyles. Initially the exclusive purview of the landed aristocracy, politics increasingly came to be played out in the open, augmented by the emergence of career politicians – usually untitled members of the patriciate – and men of new money, much of it created on Caribbean plantations or in the employ of the East India Company. Politics and the English Country House, 1688–1800 reveals how, during this period of profound change, the country house remained a constant. The country house was the definitive tangible manifestation of social standing and, for the political class, owning one became almost an imperative. In its consideration of the country house as lived and spatial experience, as an aesthetic and symbolic object, and as an economic engine, this book offers a new perspective on the complexity of political meaning embedded in the eighteenth-century country house – and on ourselves as active recipients and interpreters of its various narratives, more than two centuries later.

James Aden has his hands full when he leaves the comparative sanity of a job on an estate in Scotland when his wife inherits a farm in Suffolk. To supplement the income from the farm, he takes a job as an agent on Sir Charles Buckley's vast estate. The list of problems, and problematic characters, that he has to deal with is virtually endless with rogue chimney pots, unsavoury tenants and delinquent sheep giving him frought days and sleepless nights. There's no point in counting sheep to get to sleep when they simply won't do as they're told. Then there's the farm secretary, Gail, whose turbulent love life provides James with even more headaches than the troublesome sheep, without even the prospect of a decent Sunday roast to look forward to once the troublemakers have been put out of their misery!

Here is a book of tunes from the Elizabethan era—the great period of English song—set in tablature for the clawhammer banjo. At first glance, it is true, the songs of Shakespeare's day and the mountain banjo seem to be worlds apart. But the musical traditions are, in fact, related, as Elizabethan songs are the old world cousins of mountain tunes. As a result, Elizabethan tunes are a natural way to extend the mountain banjo repertoire for intermediate and advanced players. Their pedigree, their modal feel, the lilting rhythms, and the ease with which they can be adapted to the banjo argue the case. At the same time, they open the possibility for new sounds—in particular new rhythms—for the old instrument, pushing the banjo beyond unnatural limitations and giving it a new voice. Each section of the book is organized around a traditional mountain tuning, with a mountain song serving as a model of that tuning, illuminating the relationship between the two musical worlds. "The Bard's Banjo" is the first banjo instruction book devoted to the repertoire of Elizabethan song. Free audio downloads are available for use with this title.

Beautifully illustrated narrative history of the English country church In his engaging account, Sir Roy Strong celebrates the life of the English parish church From the arrival of the missionaries from Ireland and Rome, to the beautiful architecture and rich spirituality of medieval Catholicism; from the cataclysm of the Reformation, to the gentrified cleric we meet in Jane Austen novels, Roy Strong takes us on a journey - historical, social and spiritual - to explore what men and women experienced through the age when they went to church on Sunday. ‘Anyone with the slightest interest in the English parish church, of its life today, or its history will be intrigued, informed and enchanted by this lucid, and occasionally provocative, account’ Country Life