In the early years of this century, the image of the English manor house was part of an idealised England. The early-20th-century admiration for ancient, weathered, picturesque manor houses of the medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods - which had often ceased to be gentry residences in the 18th century - was shared by a broad audience from Romantic Tories to Utopian Socialists, including William Morris, who leased Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire as his country retreat.
From 1897, the combination of the new techniques of photography - light-filled, capable of rendering extraordinary detail - with the antiquarian illustrative tradition was powerfully Romantic. Edward Hudson, the founder and proprietor of the magazine, and H. A. Tipping, its principal architectural writer, shared a taste for the past symbolised by the ancient manor house - or its image.
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If heaven is on earth, it might be in this home with a converted chapel that is now a swimming pool5 Wood Barton Town House is part of an exclusive 80-acre development in Devon that also comes with fishing rights on the River Avon and four bedrooms.
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An Italian-inspired recipe for lemon-butter pasta shells with spring greens, ricotta and pangrattatoSpring greens are just about to come into their own, so our Kitchen Garden columnist reveals exactly what to do with them.
