The country house is Britain’s most distinctive contribution to the world’s cultural heritage. Other countries have them of course, but none in such profusion, such variety, and in such a state of completion and preservation.

A first-rate country house is more than a house. Clustering around are gardens, auxiliary buildings and a park, and beyond lie working farms and enterprises of all sorts. And of course inside the house there are furnishings and works of art and gadgets and utensils and curios: in many of the houses on these tours these moveables are of a quality and a quantity which surpass the collections of all but a couple of dozen of Britain’s museums.

Why is Britain the locus classicus of the country house? Wealth is a precondition of their erection in the first place, and by and large there was a sufficiency; geography has been kind in allowing agricultural prosperity, and Britain’s primacy in trade and industry seeped into stately piles. Relative peace and absence of foreign occupation, preference for primogeniture, a reluctance to revolt, a fruitful balance between the power of the monarch and the rights of the nobles: all these have been factors in the creation and maintenance of country house culture. Most of the houses on our tours have been in the same family for several generations.

One feature of the English country house is that it usually resides in the country; on the Continent the town often presses around the forecourt. And the countryside in England, Scotland and Wales is the loveliest in the world, and the most varied: from gently rolling farmland with green fields, ancient hedges, majestic trees and contented livestock to the bleak and rugged beauty of upland moors and highland hills. Many houses have brilliant gardens, and our tours allow plenty of time for enjoying them.

The leisurely pace of the tours is a distinctive feature. Time is allowed for relaxing and reflecting and exploring on one’s own. Special arrangements comprise another significant feature with many out-of-hours openings and access to parts not normally seen by visitors.