New Release

The Classical Country House
From the Archives of Country Life
David Watkin

The Classical Country House takes a fresh, innovative look at the traditional British country house, revealing the major influence of Classicism from the seventeenth century to the present day.

Written in five parts, the book first examines the birth of English Classicism, then the flowering of Classical design, before recounting how eighteenth-century austerity gave way to the richer styles of the nineteenth century’s Italian Renaissance Revival. The final chapters look to the last century and beyond, and at how the Classical language of design is expressed in houses as diverse as Nashdom, Gledstone and the British Embassy in Washington D.C.

David Watkin has selected over 150 of the finest images from the Country Life archive to illustrate an incisive study of twenty-six important houses and their architects in what is a major addition to architectural history.

David Watkin is an Emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse and Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of over twenty books, including Morality and Architecture, A History of Western Architecture, and Roman Forum. He is a leading authority on Classicism and its successive renewals.

The Classical Country House is available to purchase here.