Bradley House
"The house managed the neat trick of being grand without being in the least formal. I realised that this was how a manor house would be if I owned one myself: full of books and comfy sofas and log fires. There were piano duets in the music room, chess games half-finished in the library, a great gaggle of muddy wellies inside the back door and a kitchen that was the warm heart of the house.
Every morning while the others slept, I went about the house opening the heavy curtains and the tall wooden shutters, a ritual that took a good quarter of an hour. As light flooded into the rooms, the view was revealed piece by piece – the curving drive encircling the fountain, the flat croquet lawn, the mature trees of a Wiltshire parkland, the decorative sheep on the far side of the ha-ha and the distant pastures rising to the heights of Brimstone Hill. Every evening, we had drinks in the Drawing Room in front of a roaring fire before we repaired to boisterous candlelit meals at the long dining table."
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Ian Fleming
