BRITAIN'S HISTORIC HOUSES: Set of Three SIMON JENKINS Book Number: 78940 Product format: Hardback Set consists of The Southeast, Yorkshire and The West Country. Buy all three hardbacks in Simon Jenkins's magnificent series and save more. Bibliophile price: £16.50 BRITAIN'S HISTORIC HOUSES - YORKSHIRE Yorkshire is a county of two halves, built on manufacturing in the west and farming in the east, and its historic houses reflect that division. In the county's industrial heartland there is the spectacular Doncaster Mansion House, rivalled only by the mansion houses in York and London, and the little-known Bolling Hall set among mineral workings, its 18th century state rooms jostling with a medieval pele tower and heraldic glass of the Bolling and Tempest families. The arable plains of York are full of grand country houses, including the classical Beningborough Hall, glimpsed in the latest series of Downton Abbey, or Newby Hall with its noble 17th century exterior, sumptuous Angelica Kauffman panels and riotous Victorian staircase. The jewel in the crown is Castle Howard, designed by the playwright John Vanbrugh and displaying the sort of Rococo convolutions we find in the plots of his comedies. Jenkins marginally favours Rievaulx over Fountains Abbey, but both Cistercian monasteries have substantial ruins against a backdrop of superb scenery that fascinate the visitor. Settle Folly with its hint of Moorish design is a puzzle in the deep Pennines, while Skipton Castle is a grim pile, tamed with a pretty Oriel window added by Lady Anne Clifford. BRITAIN'S HISTORIC HOUSES - WEST COUNTRY This volume in Simon Jenkins's magnificent series has a wider chronological range than some of the others, from Hut Six in the Chysauster Iron Age village to Dartington High Cross House, a leading 1930s monument to modernist architecture, and the Art Deco pleasure palace Burgh Island which hosted Noël Coward, Agatha Christie and the Prince of Wales accompanied by Mrs Simpson. Castle Drogo, Lutyens's masterpiece on Dartmoor, is a mixture of modernism and Art Nouveau in concrete. Typical of the area is the gracious Elizabethan splendour of Montacute House or Prideaux Place, presenting an impressive face to the world but also being houses where you can imagine people might actually live. The Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury with its striking octagonal upper storey testifies to the wealth of the monks before the Dissolution, while Buckland Abbey was a Cistercian foundation that became the home of Sir Francis Drake. St Michael's Mount is a perennial visitor attraction dominating Mount's Bay, and further east there is the Georgian folly A La Ronde, a sixteen-sided display house for the souvenirs the Parminter sisters brought back from their grand tour. Knightshayes Court is a magnificent riot of Victorian Gothic designed by the fanatical medievalist William Burges, and Hartland Abbey's remodelled interior belongs to the same school, described by Jenkins as 'bursting with colour and pride in lineage'. BRITAIN'S HISTORIC HOUSES - THE SOUTHEAST Built to provide a defensive wall against cross-channel invaders, the castles of Kent and Sussex have fortress-like exteriors, for instance Leeds Castle, Hurstmonceux and Bodiam which all rise majestically up out of their moats, and Dover Castle which spreads out along the cliff top. As the need for keeps and dungeons receded, castles were often furnished with lavish interiors, as we see here in beautiful photos of Hever Castle, home of Anne Boleyn and more recently William Waldorf Astor, or Penshurst Place, where the Duke of Buckingham entertained Henry VIII so lavishly that the monarch grew suspicious and executed him. Knole has been the home of the Sackville family since Elizabethan times and was the birthplace of Vita Sackville West, who later created the garden at Sissinghurst which is one of the county's most-visited attractions. The Bloomsbury group is also associated with Monk's Cottage, Rodmell, home of the Woolfs, and Charleston, with walls decorated by the ménage a trois of Vanessa and Clive Bell with Duncan Grant. In total contrast is the urban splendour of Brighton Pavilion, with its exuberant mix of Indian, Persian and European Baroque styles, while on a domestic scale there is the clergy house at Alfriston, the National Trust's first acquisition in 1896.

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