An English manor house, ancient and substantial yet understated and mellow, built of local materials and set in a beautiful garden, represents an architectural ideal. For generations it has embodied civilized taste.Here are houses of timeless charm and tranquillity which symbolize the stability of English country families. And here, too, are homes which fell on hard times only to rise again. Country Life's photographs give a breathtaking view of the consistently confident approach to revivifying these houses, which exemplify the notion of the country house as a unified work of art: a beguiling vision that still colors the way we see them today.These homes reflect changing tastes, as the interest of patrons moved on from Tudor or Jacobean styles to the classical Georgian ideal.