Perfect English

The English style in interior design is admired and imitated the world over.

The English style in interior design is admired and imitated the world over.

At its grandest it is a stately home furnished with antiques, but the houses featured in this book are country cottages, farmhouses, townhouses, and apartments. What links them is as much an attitude as a look. The English style of decoration is practical and informal, designed around the inhabitants of the rooms and their lifestyles rather than to awe or impress. These houses are lived in and loved, with interiors that are comfortable, relaxed and not afraid to be pretty. All are perfect in their own way, and all as endearingly English as saying sorry when someone treads on your foot.

The book’s chapters—Plain English, English Eccentric, English Rose, English Country House and Classic English—reflect the many and varied facets of English style, and each section ends with pages devoted to suggestions and ideas for furnishing a house in all these versions of English style. At the back of the book, there is also a comprehensive listing of suppliers to help readers create their very own take on perfect English style.

Ros Byam Shaw is a former Features Editor of The World of Interiors and Deputy Editor of the British edition of the US fashion and lifestyle newspaper, W. She now writes on design and interiors for The World of Interiors, House & Garden and the Telegraph, among others. Ros is the author of Perfect English, Perfect English Farmhouse, English Eccentric, Perfect French Country and Perfect English Townhouse, as well as the bestselling Farrow & Ball Living with Colour and Farrow & Ball Decorating with Colour (all published by Ryland Peters & Small). Ros lives in Devon with her husband and dog.