The Houses of Guinness: The Lives, Homes and Fortunes of the Great Brewing Dynasty

(Hardback, New Edition)

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An elegant social and architectural history of the Guinness family.

In winter 2025/26, the new Netflix epic 'House of Guinness', a saga of Europe's most enduring dynasties, will sweep into households around the world.

In The Houses of Guinness, bestselling author Adrian Tinniswood explores the histories of the legendary Guinness family - brewers, philanthropists, socialites - through their mansions and town houses. His tour opens the door to Irish palaces like Farmleigh (where the Edwardian ballroom is said to have a floor made from barrels brought from the brewery) and Luggala in the Wicklow Mountains, to Elveden in Suffolk, the 17,000-acre estate bought by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh in 1893, and Robert Adam's Kenwood on Hampstead Heath, which Lord Iveagh saved from destruction and bequeathed to the British nation.

Unravelling the stories of more than a dozen great Guinness houses, Tinniswood reveals what life was like for a dynasty that rose from ordinary beginnings in Georgian Dublin to become one of the most powerful families in the British Isles. This engaging history is abundantly illustrated with not only a selection of archival photographs and paintings, but also specially commissioned photographs of the key properties.

'Tinniswood ... [is] an erudite historian of country-house life in all its anecdoteworthy vagaries' Financial Times

'We are in the company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly ...' Virginia Nicholson, The Times

Author Bio

Adrian Tinniswood, OBE FSA, is a true chronicler of the country houses of the UK and Ireland, having published nineteen books on social and architectural history. His many acclaimed titles include The Verneys: a True Story of Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England, which was shortlisted for the BBC/Samuel Johnson Prize and The Long Weekend: Life in the English Country House Between the Wars', a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. Adrian Tinniswood is currently Professor of British Cultural History at the University of Buckingham. He lives in the west of Ireland with his wife Helen and two cats, Jack and Matilda.