TAIYUAN VILLA (MARSHALL HOUSE). Taiyuan Lu. This mansion was built in 1920 by a French nobleman, but it is best known for having been the home from 1945 to 1949 of General George Marshall who was chief mediator between the Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist leader Mao Tsetung. After the Communist victory, the house is said to have been used by Mao's wife, Jiang Qing on her frequent visits to Shanghai. The villa is run as an anexx to a state hotel and has a restaurant that you can visit. The gardens outside are delightful for a stroll apres dessert.

MARBLE HALL. Yan Xi Lu. Another huge mansion, this time built by the Kadoorie family. It is now a "Children's Palace", used for recreational activities, but it is often possible to walk in and have a look round.

THE MOLLER HOUSE. Corner of Shaanxi Lu and Yanan Lu. What makes thios place special is the roof -- there's a Hansel and Gretel feel to the eaves. It was built by a Norwegian ship owner and became after the Communist takeover the home of the Communist Youth League. The building is now drawrfed by the skyscrapers growing around it, but it remains an extraordinary and eccentric piece of architecture.

THE SASSOON VILLA. In the grounds of the Cypress Hotel, Hongqiao Lu. Sir Victor Sassoon was a prominent Indian-Jewish businessman in Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, one of the descendants of the Sassoons who cornered the opium trade from India to China in the 1870s. He lived most of his time in a penthouse apartment in the Cathay Hotel (now the Peace Hotel) which he built on the Bund. But on weekends he retired to his estate out in Hongqiao, which featured several buildings in a vaguely English Tudor style. He gave large and lavish parties there. In 1949, when the Communists occupied Shanghai, Sir Victor was in New York. "I gave up India and China gave up me," he commented.