Pity there is no English equivalent idiom to the French “avoir un coup de cœur”.  I’ll have to do with saying I really liked Kelmscott Manor, which seems an understatement somehow. In fact it was a complete crush and never mind if the aforementioned object of my affections is not flesh and blood. After today, I am sure you can have a crush on a building.

The building itself is a magnificent Tudor house from 1600 with several dependencies and a garden as beautiful as it is fragrant, all totally secluded from view in a very rural setting near Lechlade, West Oxfordshire. House sharing really isn’t a new trend in England since Kelmscott Manor was shared by the textile designer William Morris, a major figure of the English Arts and Crafts movement, and the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rosseti.

As you can imagine with these two artists, the interior…