One of the great challenges — but also the great joys — of owning a traditional country house is deciding where to draw the line between old and new. We love historic homes because they're beautiful (a point made beautifully by Adrian Tinniswood on the Country Life Podcast last week ) but they are not museums. Living and working in a period home means doing what you can to respect and preserve the past while also making sure that you don't live in a place with damp walls, ruinous energy bills and an unwieldy layout.

So what goes out and what stays put? There are as many ways of striking that balance as there are houses, and in recent weeks we happen to have focused in on several. Last month Arabella Youens looked at unlisted houses, and the huge flexibility owners have when Historic E

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