The American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, writing in 1856, captured a persistent truth about the Englishman: "Born in a harsh and wet climate, which keeps him indoors whenever he is at rest ... he dearly loves his house." Little has changed since then; the English still lavish attention on their homes. Any whiff of news about the U.K.'s housing market is enough to make the front pages. When British TV channels aren't airing advice on buying or selling homes, they're offering lessons on how to do them up. "Domesticity," Emerson noted, "is the taproot which enables the nation to branch wide...
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