
In 1945, Eddy Sackville-West, Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Eardley Knollys - writers for the New Statesman and a National Trust administrator - purchased Long Crichel House, an old rectory with no electricity and an inadequate water supply. In this improbable place, the last...

During the interwar years, the future of the country house seemed precarious. After the horror of the First World War, resulting death duties brought about massive land sales - a quarter of England exchanged hands - and about four hundred houses were either sold or pulled...
