Tat London Journal

We released this list last week, but half the items were on sale at the time and fit the criteria of being under £500. To my shock and horror, when reviewing it again, I realised that many had since gone back up in price and were now well over their previously stated amount. It’s a tricky list to pull together, as between the time of research and publication, many of these beauties get snapped up — more’s the pity.

Yes, “a train ride away” doesn’t narrow it down much, but most of these jaunts take under two hours — a small price to pay to see some of the finest houses in the land. You can’t say fairer than that. If you’d rather stay close to home, go to Ham House. It’s an extraordinary place, right on the river, where the air still smells faintly of the seventeenth century.

'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.’  So said the great Taoist thinker Lao Tzu.  I don’t know where I sit on the enlightenment scale, but I have taken his advice and recently found myself chopping a lot of wood.