Record numbers of Americans are dining at historic British estates kept in the family for centuries

Visit most of Britain’s great houses open to the public, and you get a ticket desk, a gift shop and a rope keeping you a polite distance from the furniture; a handful work differently. The family that has owned the place for centuries still lives there and farms the land, and the way in is through the food: a pub, a grill, a walled garden that grows what lands on the plate. For an American who has already toured the castles and cathedrals, this is what the next trip is for.