Staying in the magical surroundings of Harlaxton Manor, now the British campus of the University of Evansville, Indiana, was the highlight of this August 2010 programme.

The houses visited offer a representative selection of English country houses illustrating every period from Norman to Victorian times:

• Boothby Pagnell Manor House, one of the earliest surviving examples of domestic architecture in Britain
• Ellys Manor House which contains some of the finest late-medieval domestic wall-decoration in Britain
• Grimsthorpe Castle, an extensive Tudor residence partly rebuilt by Sir John Vanburgh from 1715 onwards
• Fulbeck Hall (1733) and Leadenham House (1792-6) two examples of the medium-sized country houses in the Palladian manner
• Harlaxton Manor (1831-8), a spectacular essay in Jacobethan and Baroque architecture by Anthony Salvin and William Burn
• Stoke Rochford Hall (1841-5), Burn’s more compact follow-up commission for a neighbouring estate to Harlaxton

The 40-page illustrated handbook provides detailed notes of the history and architecture of each of these houses, together with suggestions for background reading.

To see sample pages please click here.

For further sidelights on houses in this handbook, please click here.