Built by a family with a dramatic and chequered history – the Longs – who rose in prominence through the Tudor period to become knights of the realm, friends of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and one of the most powerful dynasties in England.
Episode 3 examines the architecture of Easton Neston in Northamptonshire and discusses whether it was the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor or Sir Christopher Wren.
The building exemplifies the workings of British parliamentary democracy before the Reform Act 1832, and is important in the history of Whig politics, its owners having included influential Prime Minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham.
The episode also relates the near-destruction of the estate by controversial open-cast coal mining in the 1940s and 1950s, and speculates on how such a huge country house needing extensive renovation might find a use in the 21st century.
Episode 6 views Marshcourt in Stockbridge, Hampshire, designed by Edwin Lutyens for stockbroker Herbert Johnson and completed in 1905.