Howards End, Manderley, Brideshead – some fictional houses are as unforgettable as the characters who inhabit them. As Daphne du Maurier said of Menabilly, the house that inspired her characters’ devotion to Manderley, it possessed her “even as a mistress holds a lover”. Du Maurier had coveted Menabilly House in Cornwall for decades before she was able to live there. Hollinghurst has quipped that he was “an architect from the age of six or so … I designed country houses when I went away to boarding school”. The preservation of the English country house has always depended on its ability to adapt to new circumstances.

Source: The Guardian July 29, 2017 06:56 UTC