[Ryland Peters & Small] In Romantic English Homes, Robert O'Byrne has gathered together a collection of some of England’s most glorious abodes, from venerable country houses to a thatched farmhouse to an enchanting Gothick folly. Ever since the English aristocracy embarked on the Grand Tour in the seventeenth century, a passion for collecting has become a national trait. This is reflected not only in England’s aristocratic palaces and ancient manors, but in more modest residences, too. Romantic English Homes features 14 such homes. Large or small, old or new, they all exude typical English style: massed objects intentionally mingling a variety of styles and tastes, with the classical placed next to the gothic, and plaid checks alongside floral prints. Criss-crossing the country, from Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall to East Anglia and Suffolk, from London to Staffordshire and Northumberland, it is both the romantic timelessness of these properties and their comfortable, many-layered