This Is the House That Jack Built was printed in numerous collections in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Randolph Caldecott produced an illustrated version in 1878. Cherrington Manor, a handsome timber-framed house in North East Shropshire, England, is reputed to be the actual house that Jack built. There is a former malt house in the grounds. Each sentence in the story is an example of an increasingly deeply nested relative clause. The last version, "This is the horse...", would be quite difficult to untangle if the previous ones were not present. See the Noun Phrase for more details about postmodification of the noun phrase in
The House That Berry Built & Co". "The House That Berry Built" charts the Pleydell family's decision to sell White Ladies, their ancestral home in Hampshire, England, and move to Pau, in the South of France. Unable to afford their aristocratic lifestyle in England, and unhappy at social upheavals following the end of World War I, they take refuge in the South of France where they believe traditional values have not yet disappeared. Nostalgic for a vanished world of social events and elegant idleness, Berry and his friends spend their time driving their Rolls and picnicking on the slopes of the Valley of Ossau. Wearied