The English Country House takes a look at the architecture and interiors of sixty-two stunning houses in a range of architectural styles spanning seven centuries - from the medieval Stokesay Castle to the newly built, Lutyens-inspired Corfe Farm - brought to life through the world-renowned photography library of Country Life. More than four hundred color and black and white illustrations provide an insight into the architecture, decoration, gardens, and landscape settings of these houses, which are set into their architectural and historical context by the accompanying text and extended captions.

The book provides an entrée into the houses to which Country Life has had privileged access over the years, many of which are still private homes, often occupied by descendants of the families that built them. Punctuating the book at intervals in the form of booklets on rich, uncoated paper are six essays by leading British architectural historians that set the English country house into its social context and chart the changing tastes in decorating and collecting, the development of ancillary buildings, gardens and landscapes, and finally, its influence in the United States. 

About the Authors:

Mary Miers is architectural writer, arts and books editor for Country Life. Her previous career was in architectural conservation, and she established and ran Scotland's Buildings at Risk Register in the 1990s.  Her books include The Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide and American Houses: The Architecture of Fairfax & Sammons.  Her home is in the Highlands of Scotland. 

Featuring breathtaking photographs of some of Scotland’s most remarkable and little-known houses, this book tells the story of how incomers adopted the North of Scotland as a recreational paradise and left an astonishing legacy of architecture and decoration inspired by the romanticized image of the Highlands.  Known as shooting lodges because they were designed principally to accommodate the parties of guests that flocked north for the annual sporting season, these houses range from Picturesque cottages ornées and Scotch Baronial castles to Arts and Crafts mansions and modern eco-lodges. While their designs respond to some of Britain’s wildest and most stirring landscapes, inside many were equipped with the latest domestic technology and boasted opulent decoration and furnishings from the smartest London and Parisian firms.  A good number survive little altered in their original state, and some are still owned by descendants of the families that built them.

Images from the famous Country Life Picture Library and specially commissioned photographs evoke the dramatic settings and arresting detail of these houses, making the book as appealing to decorators and architectural historians as it is to travelers and sportsmen.

About the Author:

Mary Miers commutes between her home in the Scottish Highlands and England, where she works as the Fine Arts and Books Editor for Country Life magazine. Her books include: 'The English Country House’ (Rizzoli); 'Highlands and Islands; an anthology of poetry of place’ (Eland); and 'The Western Seaboard; an illustrated architectural guide’ (Rutland Press). The late Paul Barker was one of England’s premier interior and architectural photographers, whose books included English Country House Interiors, The Drawing Room, and English Ruins.

Anne Fairfax and Richard Sammons are at the forefront of a movement among architects today who draw inspiration from the wellspring of the classical traditions in architecture. 

They have developed a body of work that reflects and adheres to the long-held theories of proportion and order passed down through many past generations of scholarship and practice. The firm's office also served as the headquarters for Henry Hope Reid's Classical America, the only organization offering an alternative to modernist aesthetics until the establishment of the Institute of Classical Architecture in 1992. 

The twenty-four projects in this volume show the firm's consistent focus on classical architectural beauty, whether the chosen style be Palladian, Tuscan, Mediterranean, Georgian, Adamesque, Neo-classical, British or Dutch Colonial, Colonial Revival, or even East Coast Shingle Style, in all of which Fairfax & Sammons are eminently proficient. 

The projects selected out of the firm's large body of work include country houses located in Connecticut, New York, Virginia, and Florida, including the renovation of townhouses and apartments in New York City — all presented in new color photography.

About the Author:

Mary Miers is Architectural Writer for the London-based journal Country Life. She lives in London and Scotland. Adele Chatfield-Taylor is president of the American Academy in Rome. She lives in New York City.