The Curious House Guest

Jeremy Musson visits Britain's grandest houses. He's at Holkham Hall, the Norfolk home of Lord and Lady Leicester, and claims that although Palladio was its inspiration, Britain gave Holkham's architectural style to the world.

Jeremy Musson visits Ninfa, Italy's medieval Pompeii. He often finds Italian influences shaping our country houses, but at Ninfa he discovers that British ideas have moulded its current form.

Vann is the Surrey home of an architectural dynasty. WD Caroe was a leading light of the Arts and Crafts movement and his descendents have followed his footsteps. Jeremy Musson is entertained by the current generation of Caroes, but has to overcome an attack of vertigo.

Hampden Great House is a Georgian landed estate that has been owned by the same family for the last 150 years, but Jeremy Musson had to travel 4,500 miles to reach it. However, for the weary visitor there were sweeteners of sugar and rum - the reasons for this Jamaican plantation's very existence.

Jeremy Musson visits Renishaw Hall, home of the arty, eccentric Sitwell family, whose fortunes soared in the 19th century when coal was found on the estate. Today, the mines are gone and the house is once more surrounded by the green hills of Derbyshire.

Jeremy Musson visits Kenyan colonial house Hippo Point - every bit the Tudor manor house, except for the giraffes and zebras strolling past the garden fence.

Jeremy Musson visits Stradey Castle, the LIanelli home of the Mansel Lewis family. He goes back to Victorian times to explore a house that was built at the height of the Industrial Revolution and which is still home to the family that built it.

Jeremy Musson visits Provender, a small piece of Russia in the Garden of England. Its owner Princess Olga Romanoff tells Jeremy about her close family links to the last tsar, and about her ambitious plans to restore one of the most historic, yet least known, houses in Kent.