Trip to the Cotswolds

In this entry, our curious house guest is giving a tour of an early 18th century house not far from Painswick -- soon to be featured in the pages of Country Life

Last week, I went down to the Cotswolds to prepare for a feature on a delectable early-18th-century house, in a delightful setting not far from Painswick. This is a gem of the smaller English baroque house, conditioned as much by the Cotswolds mason tradition as by the most significant architectural theorising of the day (ie its a bit old fashioned for its date, but I love it). It looks over a valley but at the same time is made to feel rather remote by the tall trees which surround it. Our hosts have lived here for many decades, and treated it most lovingly, furnished with good English antiques and paintings, it is the epitome of English country life.

On our tour round the house we trace the alterations made in the early 1800s- a library, some Gothic detailing - and in the early 20th century, where we have an amusing time picking over photographs of fancy dress balls of the 1920s to see how the panelling looked like then. David Verey, the author of the Cotswolds Pevsner, lived there for some time as a child.

The author of the forthcoming piece is Christopher Woodward, the lively new director of the Museum of Garden History, formerly of the Holborne Museum in Bath and author of In Ruins, who has been a freelance contributor for Country Life for the past decade.

He is hosting a talk and exhibition from the Garnetts of Cannwood who I visited for the Genius of the Place competition, and will have buckets of wild flowers bought up from their farm on the day of their talk, to bring a breath of the country to Lambeth. Details of the talk can be found in Town and Country soon.

Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.