Book review: Three Houses, Many Lives, By Gillian Tindall

Tindall transforms bricks and mortar into fascinating social history. Manor House in Limpsfield, Surrey, purchased with the scandalous sale of Lord Chesterfield's Letters, became an icy school.

Stapleton Hall in Stroud Green was farmland until the railways came – even afterwards, since the Great Northern provided a footbridge for cows.

But soon the fields were suburbia and the house was HQ of Stroud Green Conservative Association.

The Old Vicarage, Taynton, Oxfordshire, was home to Parson Woodforde, though he wouldn't be happy now. "There is, of course, no shop."