Writers’ tales
WHEN, in May 2008, Combe Florey House, near Taunton, Somerset, last appeared in the property pages of Country Life, the striking red sandstone Georgian house, set in 35 acres of parkland overlooking the Quantock Hills, looked more or less the same as it does today. The interior, however, was a very different story.
The house was being sold on behalf of the Waugh family, whose forebear, the notoriously difficult writer Evelyn—described in his entry as ‘regarded by many as the most brilliant satirical novelist of his day’—bought the house in 1956 and died there, suddenly, 10 years later. He was succeeded by his journalist son, Auberon, who bought the house from his mother and moved there with
