Old English Household Life

First published in 1925 and reprinted many times since, Old English Household Life is a fascinating portrait of a long-vanished way of being. Its author, Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932), is best known for her pioneering garden design work, but this volume reveals her wider knowledge and love of country life: its crafts, traditions and people. From the sturdy tools arranged around the cottage hearth to the many buildings and trades to be found in the fields, woods and lanes of the English countryside, Jekyll details rural skills and customs which had endured for hundreds of years but were now giving way to the modern age. Without sentimentalising the often harsh lives faced by her subjects, Jekyll's account is full of admiration for the hard work, dignity and rich variety of country life.