Perfect English Cottage
By Ros Byam Shaw
Ryland, Peters & Small; £25
FT Bookshop price: £20.

English country cottages are symbolic of escapism and redolent with nostalgia (think of rose-framed doors), which is why this handsome 192-page hardback is as much an antidote to stress and materialism as its subject-matter.

Byam Shaw’s tour of English cottages takes readers from a tiny Victorian farm-worker’s home and a Cotswolds stone renovation to a seaside retreat and even a cottage-style townhouse. The 18 photogenic properties are grouped by “mood” within five chapters – Romance, Character, Holiday, Simplicity, Elegance. Each chapter concludes with a page highlighting easy-to-emulate design and decorating ideas featured in the foregoing interiors.

Compact proportions are a cottage’s defining feature, with the oldest properties generally having the smallest rooms and windows. The ones featured here date back 100 years or more, with some homes doubling as modern workspaces, so Byam Shaw suggests practical ways to maximise space and light. Jan Baldwin’s evocative photographs are accompanied by detailed captions that elucidate and inspire. The well-written text, meanwhile, encourages owners not to strip and sanitise but to add a further, atmospheric layer to a property’s old bones. Inexpensive, loving touches reveal how it can best be done.