Today I bring you Faringdon House in Oxfordshire, a late-Georgian manor once owned by the eccentric Lord Berners. A modernist composer, Dadaist painter and writer, Lord Berners entertained an incredible crowd at Faringdon including Cecil Beaton, Dali, Fonteyn, H G Wells, Stravinsky, and Gertrude Stein.

I was drawn into the double drawing-room (below) with its contrasting dark and pale schemes. The contrast is unexpected and reflects the nature of the house where walls hung with Corots, Constables, and Matisses contrast with tongue-in-cheek phrases adorned the walls, such as one at the top of the stairs that reads "No dogs admitted."

As of 2001, the home was still in the hands of a relative of Berners, who at the time was renting the home for £8,000 per month. Read more about her here.

Images from English Elegance by Judy Brittain