This book is the first complete study of the circumstances which led to the building of Castle Howard, one of the greatest and best-known English country houses. It describes how and why Charles Howard, third earl of Carlisle, decided to build it; how the architect Sir John Vanbrugh received his first commission; how the building was paid for and where the money came from; what the original interiors looked like; how the gardens and park were laid out; and the decision taken to build the first classical mausoleum in England, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. It relates the physical appearance of the architecture to the hopes, desires and personalities of those involved in the building and makes it possible to look at the house in the way that it was intended to be seen by visitors in the eighteenth century. The Building of Castle Howard should appeal to anyone who is interested in eighteenth-century architecture, in the history of gardens, in country houses, and in a historical detective story of a house which Sir John Vanbrugh was determined should be 'the top seat and garden of England.'

In keeping with the grandeur of the magnificent house, the grounds at Castle Howard are designed on a heroic scale. First laid out in the early years of the 18th century, the 1,000 acres of gardens are dotted with statues, lakes, and fountains, and delightful walks reveal hidden glades and breathtaking views. With many terrace walks and lakeside paths, memorable sights include the Atlas Fountain and the Temple of the Four Winds. Set within the walled gardens, the rose garden contains 2,000 modern roses of all types, including David Austin's English roses, making this one of England's most comprehensive collections. Set on the site of an ancient woodland, Ray Wood -- a rare combination of the planter's art and botanical science -- holds one of the most extensive plant collections in private hands in Europe. A more recent development is Castle Howard's Ornamental Vegetable Garden, known as the Potager, on the site of the House's original kitchen garden. This book of the extraordinary 18th-century gardens of one of England's finest historic houses through the seasons features a foreword by the Hon. Simon Howard, who lives at Castle Howard.

The Pyramids and the Taj Mahal are witness to the extravagant architectural tributes that, throughout human history, the great and the wealthy have paid to their dead. In this book, a well-known architectural historian provides a history of funerary architecture in western Europe from the earliest megalithic tombs of prehistory to the establishment of public cemeteries in the nineteenth century. With sensitivity and wit, Howard Colvin traces the ways in which these structures represent changing ideas about the after-life as well as changes in architectural style.

"In explaining why Vanbrugh's buildings look the way they do, Hart allows his novel architectural forms to be understood for the first time as expressions of the visual and psychological theories of his friend and fellow Whig Joseph Addison."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume of essays explores a range of country house collections in Ireland, the UK, US and Europe. It examines how collections were built up over time, how they were dispersed or destroyed, and how they have been interpreted and valued. Among the topics considered are the impact of exhibitions, auctions, and tax systems, private versus institutional collectors, the range of audiences who appreciate art, and how collections are made to tell national stories.

Bridgerton's England is a location guide to all the key filming sites in the hit Netflix series with author Antonia Hicks linking each fictional location to its real-life counterpart. Winston Churchill's former gentleman's retreat, The Reform Club, becomes 'Whites Club' where Anthony Bridgerton and Simon Basset meet to discuss infidelities and smoke cigars, and 18th-century dress shop 'Modiste' is a deli in Bath's Abbey Street. Readers can learn about the locations used for the Bridgertons, Featheringtons, Lady Danbury, the Duke of Hastings, Queen Charlotte, Whites, Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Somerset House, Primrose Hill, and Cliveden Castle. Sites include Stowe and Painshill Park, Henry VIII's Hampton Court, Castle Howard, Bath's Royal Crescent, Holburne Art Museum, Wilton House, Lancaster House and the most upmarket Air Force officer's mess in the world! This is the perfect book for fans of the show but also of grand stately homes and sweeping classical landscapes that producers Chris Van Dusen and Shonda Rhimes picked to bring Julia Quinn's novels to life on the screen. Almost all the stately homes, houses, parks and gardens used in Bridgerton are open to the public and the book examines their history, linking important scenes to each location and giving details of where and when you can visit them to relive the drama.

Hampton Court Palace - Windsor Castle - Versailles - Malmaison - Fontainebleau - Alhambra - Aranjuez - Tsarskoe Selo - Winter Palace - Kronborg, Elsinore - Royal Palace, (Pink Palace) Monaco.

Vivien Leigh's mystique was a combination of staggering beauty, glamour, romance, and genuine talent displayed in her Oscar-winning performances in Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire. For more than thirty years, her name alone sold out theaters and cinemas the world over, and she inspired many of the greatest visionaries of her time: Laurence Olivier loved her; Winston Churchill praised her; Christian Dior dressed her. Through both an in-depth narrative and a stunning array of photos, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait presents the personal story of one of the most celebrated women of the twentieth century, an engrossing tale of success, struggles, and triumphs. It chronicles Leigh's journey from her birth in India to prominence in British film, winning the most-coveted role in Hollywood history, her celebrated love affair with Laurence Olivier, through to her untimely death at age fifty-three in 1967. Author Kendra Bean is the first Vivien Leigh biographer to delve into the Laurence Olivier Archives, where an invaluable collection of personal letters and documents ranging from interview transcripts to film contracts to medical records shed new insight on Leigh's story. Illustrated by hundreds of rare and never-before-published images, including those by Leigh's "official" photographer, Angus McBean, Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait is the first illustrated biography to closely examine the fascinating, troubled, and often misunderstood life of Vivien Leigh: the woman, the actress, the legend.

Looking at the building of country houses as a whole, this book investigates why owners embarked on extensive building programmes, often following a grand tour. It explores the cost of building and the cost of furnishing and decoration.

Novel Houses' visits unforgettable dwellings in twenty legendary works of English and American fiction. Each chapter stars a famous novel in which a dwelling is pivotal to the plot, and reveals how personally significant that place was to the writer who created it.0We discover Uncle Tom's Cabin's powerful influence on the American Civil War, how essential 221B Baker Street was to Sherlock Holmes and the importance of Bag End to the adventuring hobbits who called it home. It looks at why Bleak House is used as the name of a happy home and what was on Jane Austen's mind when she worked out the plot of Mansfield Park. Little-known background on the dwellings at the heart of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast and Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm emerges, and the real life settings of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and E.M. Forster's Howards End, so fundamental to their stories, are shown to relate closely to their authors' passions and preoccupations. 0A winning combination of literary criticism, geography and biography, this is an entertaining and insightful celebration of beloved novels and the extraordinary role that houses grand and small, imagined and real, or unique and ordinary, play in their continuing popularity.