An English manor house, ancient and substantial but also mellow and understated, built of local materials and set in a fine garden, represents an architectural ideal. Not surprisingly, such houses have been central to the vision of the magazine Country Life, which has for over a century devoted a weekly article illustrated with outstanding photographs to a country home. From this archive, Jeremy Musson has selected pictures by some of the finest architectural photographers to accompany his account of the history of England's smaller country houses.