Simon Davis is the presenter of Country House Rescue's fourth series. Here, he tells us about his favourite country houses.
Sezincote, Gloucestershire
I still get a frisson of excitement when driving up to this astonishing property with its fabulously exotic green onion dome and intricate chattris made of traditional Cotswold stone set into a quintessential English hillside. It is the original Brighton Pavilion quite literally. When the Prince Regent visited on 1806 he promptly contacted Nash his architect on the pavilion and said he wanted it to be Indian-inspired and not Chinese as originally planned. Samuel Pepys Cockerell built it for his brother Charles Cockerell who had made his fortune in India. It is a unique example of the architecture of Akbar mixing Hindu and Muslim detail and it is breathtaking; and open to the public on certain days.
Blenheim, Oxfordshire
We will never again see houses of the grandeur, beauty and political and social clout - that Blenheim Palace represents. It was a gift to the first Duke of Marlborough from Queen Anne for his victory over Marshall Tallands French forces at Blindheim during the Wars of Spanish Succession in 1704. Constructed by John Vanbrugh with garden by Capability Brown (the Duke planted half a million trees) the palace houses much of its original collection and is still the residence of the family although very much open to the public. Churchill grandson of the 7th Duke was born there and the palace and estate is now a World Heritage Site justifiably so.
Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland
The Marquess of Bute was, at one time, the wealthiest man in the world as he controlled coal exports form Wales. A great patron of architecture he commissioned Mount Stuart on family estates on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. It is, quite simply, a phantasmagorical Victorian Gothic masterpiece on a blistering scale. It makes modern day Russian blingery look Amish in its restraint. The divinely surreal marble hall is 80ft high and has glass stars, exactly on their correct course and encased in silver, on the ceiling. It was also the first home in the world to have a heated indoor swimming pool and the first in Scotland to have electric lighting, central heating, a telephone system and a Victorian passenger lift. Most of which are still in use today. Very much open to the public and thrilling.
Villa Emo, Vicenza, Italy
Anyone interested in architecture will visit Vicenza and the surrounding country, known as the Veneto, in Italy, not far from Venice. It is where the finest commissions of the classicist Andrea Palladio - the greatest architect the world has seen - are located. Villa Emo was designed in 1559 for the patrician Emo family. It is to my mind the perfect example of proportion. Visitors to Vicenza should also see Palladios La Rotunda and the simply astonishing Teatro Olimpico the oldest surviving enclosed theatre in the world with its amazing trompe-loeil sets by Vicenza Scamozzi which give the suggestion of streets and buildings disappearing in the distance. The original 3d masterpiece.
Babington House, Somerset
It has many imitators but this elegant Georgian house in Somerset re-defined the country house hotel experience. Food you want to eat, beds you cant bear to leave, the countrys best spa, the heated outdoor pool, the library for ambling through the Sunday papers with a Bloody Mary, affable staff, and all set in beautiful countryside.
