This book traces the development of British society and culture from prehistory to the present day.

This captivating book, fully revised and updated and featuring more NT houses than ever before, is a guide to some of the greatest architectural treasures of Britain, encompassing both interior and exterior design. This new edition is fully revised and updated and includes entries for new properties including: Acorn Bank, Claife Viewing Station, Cushendun, Cwmdu, Fen Cottage, The Firs (birthplace of Edward Elgar), Hawker's Hut, Lizard Wireless Station, Totternhoe Knolls and Trelissick. The houses covered include spectacular mansions such as Petworth House and Waddesdon Manor, and more lowly dwellings such as the Birmingham Back to Backs and estate villages like Blaise Hamlet, near Bristol. In addition to houses, the book also covers fascinating buildings as diverse as churches, windmills, dovecotes, castles, follies, barns and even pubs. The book also acts as an overview of the country's architectural history, with every period covered, from the medieval stronghold of Bodiam Castle to the clean-lined Modernism of The Homewood. Teeming with stories of the people who lived and worked in these buildings: wealthy collectors (Charles Wade at Snowshill), captains of industry (William Armstrong at Cragside), prime ministers (Winston Churchill at Chartwell) and pop stars (John Lennon at Mendips). Written in evocative, imaginative prose and illustrated with glorious images from the National Trust's photographic library, this book is an essential guide to the built heritage of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

This illustrated volume traces the social and cultural history of Britain from the early 15th to the late 18th century. The maps and photographs focus on archaeological and historical sites held by the British National Trust and the book develops themes including wealth and status, agriculture and rural society, town and industry, population and the family, religion and education, and also spotlights particular events such as the Wars of the Roses, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Great Plague and Jacobitism. A full list of National Trust sites is provided to encourage readers to visit these and other properties where visual remains consolidate the investigations in the atlas itself.

In his New History of England, leading historian Jeremy Black takes a cool and dispassionate look at the vicissitudes of over two millennia of English history.

"A companion to the acclaimed BBC/History Channel series"--Cover.