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76-528: Kingston Lacy is a country house and estate near Wimborne Minster , Dorset , England. It was for many years the family seat of the Bankes family who lived nearby at Corfe Castle until its destruction in the English Civil War after its incumbent owners, Sir John Bankes and Dame Mary, had remained loyal to Charles I . The house was built between 1663 and 1665 by Ralph Bankes , son of Sir John Bankes, to

152-407: A Victorian fernery and a sunken garden. To the west of the house, there is a rose garden with a central circular lawn. The kitchen garden lies to the south of the pleasure grounds and is now a commercial nursery . The house and gardens are open to the public and in 2019 received about 410,000 visitors. English country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in

228-433: A concentration of large numbers of people in need of work had emerged; the former country tenants and their descendants became workers in industrial factories within cities. The Inclosure (Consolidation) Act 1801 ( 41 Geo. 3. (U.K.) c. 109) was passed to tidy up previous acts. The Inclosure Act 1845 ( 8 & 9 Vict. c. 118) instituted the appointment of Inclosure Commissioners, who could enclose land without submitting

304-499: A design by the architect Sir Roger Pratt . It is a rectangular building with two main storeys, attics and basement, modelled on Chevening in Kent. The gardens and parkland were laid down at the same time, including some of the specimen trees that remain today. Various additions and alterations were made to the house over the years and the estate remained in the ownership of the Bankes family from

380-457: A fact confirmed many years later when the National Trust discovered Webb's plans during their formal takeover of the estate. The interiors mostly date from about 1835. The hall has a barrel-vaulted high ceiling with painted decoration and the dining room has panelled walls, tapestries and a decorated plaster ceiling. The library has a ceiling painting attributed to Guido Reni . The staircase

456-428: A fortunate few; it was the centre of its own world, providing employment to hundreds of people in the vicinity of its estate . In previous eras, when state benefits were unheard of, those working on an estate were among the most fortunate, receiving secured employment and rent-free accommodation. At the summit of this category of people was the indoor staff of the country house. Unlike many of their contemporaries prior to

532-524: A mixture of high architecture , often as interpreted by a local architect or surveyor, and determined by practicality as much as by the whims of architectural taste. An example of this is Brympton d'Evercy in Somerset, a house of many periods that is unified architecturally by the continuing use of the same mellow, local Ham Hill stone . The fashionable William Kent redesigned Rousham House only to have it quickly and drastically altered to provide space for

608-399: A number of disparate strips throughout the manor, as would the manorial lord . Called the open-field system , it was administered by manorial courts , which exercised some collective control. What might now be termed a single field would have been divided under this system among the lord and his tenants; poorer peasants ( serfs or copyholders , depending on the era) were allowed to live on

684-408: A royal estate within the manor of Wimborne . The original house stood to the north of the current house. It was built in the medieval period and was used as a hunting lodge in connection with the deer park to its northwest. Leased to those who found favour with the monarch, lessees included the de Lacys , Earls of Lincoln , who held it in addition to estates at Shapwick and Blandford Forum . In

760-414: A trial and his execution, William John fled the country for Italy. His art collection was left at Kingston Lacy, where his notes and drawings remained for many years in a cabinet, unpublished and forgotten. During William John's absence the estate was managed by his brother, George Bankes, who inherited it on his brother's death just a year before his own in 1857. His youngest grandson Walter Ralph inherited

836-488: A week in 1907. The main staircase is beautifully carved from stone and features three huge statues which look out onto the gardens from their seats. These depict Sir John Bankes and Lady Bankes, the defenders of Corfe Castle, and their patron, Charles I . The land surrounding Kingston Lacy was registered as being of special historic interest in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in 1986, it being "parkland developed in

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912-555: Is a Grade I listed building having been so designated on 18 March 1955. On display in the house is an important collection of fine art and antiquities built up by many generations of the Bankes family, the core having been assembled by Sir Ralph Bankes in Gray's Inn before the house was built. One of the rooms, the Spanish room (named by reason of the paintings of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo which hang there), has walls hung with gilded leather. It

988-500: Is called a castle, but not all buildings with the name "castle" are fortified (for example Highclere Castle in Hampshire ). The term stately home is subject to debate, and avoided by historians and other academics. As a description of a country house, the term was first used in a poem by Felicia Hemans , "The Homes of England", originally published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1827. In

1064-488: Is entered from the north through a later mid-19th-century porte-cochère , while to the south there is a stone-flagged terrace with balustrade extending the full width of the building, and broad shallow steps leading down to the lawns. The east façade has a triple-arched loggia with access to the garden, while to the west there is access to the later 18th-century laundry and kitchen garden . The interiors were influenced by Inigo Jones , but executed by his heir John Webb ,

1140-438: Is of white marble with turned balusters and a relief frieze, its ornamented ceiling being attributed to Giorgione . Sited centrally within the 164-hectare (410-acre) grounds, externally the new house was provided with 5 hectares (12 acres) of formal gardens and pleasure grounds; some of these were enclosed by walls, while a series of wide avenues radiated throughout the surrounding 159 hectares (390 acres) of parkland. The house

1216-473: Is politics; they talk politics; and they make politics, quite spontaneously. There are no written terms for distinguishing between vast country palaces and comparatively small country houses; the descriptive terms, which can include castle , manor and court , provide no firm clue and are often only used because of a historical connection with the site of such a building. Therefore, for ease or explanation, Britain's country houses can be categorised according to

1292-506: Is the ITV series Downton Abbey . Inclosure Acts Before the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste". "Common" land was under the control of the lord of the manor, but certain rights on the land such as pasture , pannage , or estovers were held variously by certain nearby properties, or (occasionally) in gross by all manorial tenants. "Waste"

1368-471: The Parliamentary forces . In March 1645 Parliament voted to slight the castle, and it was left in its present ruinous state. Although deprived of their castle, the Bankes family owned some 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of the surrounding Dorset countryside and coastline. The masonry from the destroyed castle was used by local villagers to rebuild their own residences. Sir Ralph died in 1677, and his widow let

1444-571: The Agricultural Revolution ; higher productivity also enabled landowners to justify higher rents for the people working the land. The powers granted in the Inclosure Act 1773 ( 13 Geo. 3 . c. 81) of the Parliament of Great Britain were often abused by landowners: the preliminary meetings where enclosure was discussed, intended to be held in public, often took place in the presence of only

1520-592: The Second World War an extensive military encampment was established in the south-east quarter of the park, which was only restored after the National Trust took ownership. Ralph Bankes died in 1981 and the Kingston Lacy estate, including 12 working farms, and Corfe Castle were bequeathed to the National Trust. The gift was formally accepted on 19 August 1982, the largest bequest that it had ever accepted. After

1596-426: The 15th century the property was leased to John Beaufort , Duke of Somerset , whose daughter Lady Margaret Beaufort , mother of King Henry VII , was brought up at Kingston Lacy. By the 18th century the house was in ruins. In 1603 King James I gave the lands to Sir Charles Blount . In 1636, his son sold the estate to Sir John Bankes , who had been appointed attorney general to King Charles I in 1634. Sir John

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1672-494: The 17th to the late 20th century. The house was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1958 and the park and gardens are included in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II. The house was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1982 after the death of Henry John Ralph Bankes , along with Corfe Castle. The house and gardens are open to the public. The Kingston Lacy estate originally formed part of

1748-552: The 1850s, with the English economy booming, new mansions were built in one of the many revivalist architectural styles popular throughout the 19th century. The builders of these new houses were able to take advantage of the political unrest in Europe that gave rise to a large trade in architectural salvage. This new wave of country house building is exemplified by the Rothschild properties in

1824-454: The 18th century made them more commonplace. Because tenants, or even copyholders, had legally enforceable rights on the land, substantial compensation was provided to extinguish them; thus many tenants were active supporters of enclosure, though it enabled landlords to force reluctant tenants to comply with the process. With legal control of the land, landlords introduced innovations in methods of crop production, increasing profits and supporting

1900-419: The 18th century with houses such as Castle Howard , Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall . Such building reached its zenith from the late 17th century until the mid-18th century; these houses were often completely built or rebuilt in their entirety by one eminent architect in the most fashionable architectural style of the day and often have a suite of Baroque state apartments, typically in enfilade , reserved for

1976-481: The 20th century, the term was later popularised in a song by Noël Coward , and in modern usage it often implies a country house that is open to visitors at least some of the time. In England, the terms "country house" and "stately home" are sometimes used vaguely and interchangeably; however, many country houses such as Ascott in Buckinghamshire were deliberately designed not to be stately, and to harmonise with

2052-474: The 20th century, they slept in proper beds, wore well-made adequate clothes and received three proper meals a day, plus a small wage. In an era when many still died from malnutrition or lack of medicine, the long working hours were a small price to pay. As a result of the aristocratic habit of only marrying within the aristocracy, and whenever possible to a sole heiress, many owners of country houses owned several country mansions, and would visit each according to

2128-480: The English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house . This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who dominated rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832 . Frequently,

2204-580: The Younger , grandson of Ralph Bankes, to create the current estate and parkland footprint. He demolished the hamlet of Kingston which was situated adjacent to the 16th-century Keeper's Lodge, diverted the Blandford road (now the B3082 ) and converted former agricultural land to parkland. He undertook further minor alterations in the 1820s, before he became a Member of Parliament for the rotten borough of Corfe Castle . He

2280-444: The basement and nine sash windows on each of the ground floor and first floor. The bay with the three central windows projects forwards slightly, and the central ground floor window is pedimented. The lead-covered hipped roof has a central flat section, surrounded by a balustrade with a cupola rising from its centre. The dormer windows are in a central, balustraded terrace of three, with an outlying window on either side. The house

2356-419: The bedroom floor were connected by a balcony supported by columns which may have served the additional purpose of helping support the north side of the cupola . Built of red brick with Chilmark and Portland stone dressings, the house has a compact, rectangular plan and has two main floors, plus a basement and an attic floor lit by dormer windows . On the south façade , there are eight casement windows in

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2432-467: The best-known examples of the showy prodigy house , often built with the intention of attracting the monarch to visit. By the reign of Charles I , Inigo Jones and his form of Palladianism had changed the face of English domestic architecture completely, with the use of turrets and towers as an architectural reference to the earlier castles and fortified houses completely disappearing. The Palladian style, in various forms, interrupted briefly by baroque ,

2508-520: The circumstances of their creation. The great houses are the largest of the country houses; in truth palaces, built by the country's most powerful – these were designed to display their owners' power or ambitions to power. Really large unfortified or barely fortified houses began to take over from the traditional castles of the crown and magnates during the Tudor period, with vast houses such as Hampton Court Palace and Burghley House , and continued until

2584-513: The country saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses. Henry VIII 's Dissolution of the Monasteries saw many former ecclesiastical properties granted to the King's favourites, who then converted them into private country houses. Woburn Abbey , Forde Abbey and many other mansions with abbey or priory in their name became private houses during this period. Other terms used in

2660-428: The design of the wing around the next corner. These varying "improvements", often criticised at the time, today are the qualities that make English country houses unique. Wealthy and influential people, often bored with their formal duties, go to the country in order to get out of London, the ugliest and most uncomfortable city in the world; they invented the long week-end to stay away as long as possible. Their métier

2736-427: The early 1970s, hundreds of country houses were demolished . Houses that survived destruction are now mostly Grade I or II listed as buildings of historic interest with restrictions on restoration and re-creation work. However such work is usually very expensive. Several houses have been restored, some over many years. For example at Copped Hall where the restoration started in 1995 continues to this day. Although

2812-399: The estate in 1869, and later in life married Henrietta, and had a son: Henry John Ralph Bankes . After Walter's death in 1902, his widow undertook the last major developments to the estate, including construction of the church (1907), new entrance lodges (1912–13) and numerous estate cottages. In 1923 control passed to Ralph Bankes, the seven times great-grandson of the original creator. During

2888-461: The estate is part of the Roman road from Dorchester to Old Sarum . The estate has two main entrances on Blandford Road, each with a lodge and ornate gateway. The broad drives sweep round to a carriage-turning area by the north façade of the house. The park is mainly pastureland with informal plantings of specimen trees, designed to create pleasant vistas. There are two water features to the northeast of

2964-414: The formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses . With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for many rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s , the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However,

3040-473: The home counties and Bletchley Park (rebuilt in several styles, and famous for its code-breaking role in World War II). The slow decline of the English country house coincided with the rise not just of taxation, but also of modern industry, along with the agricultural depression of the 1870s. By 1880, this had led some owners into financial shortfalls as they tried to balance maintenance of their estates with

3116-534: The house to James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond from 1686 until he died there on 21 July 1688. John Bankes the Elder regained the property in 1693, and with his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Parker of Honington Hall , completed most of his father's original development plan. In 1772 the house passed to his second son Henry who remodelled it, built a servants' wing, and enclosed the parkland for better agricultural management. The 1784 Enclosure Act allowed Henry Bankes

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3192-590: The house's antiquities. He travelled extensively in the Middle East and Asia , amassing the world's largest individual collection of Ancient Egyptian antiques. Most notable is the Philae obelisk which stands prominently in the grounds of the house. When in Genoa he acquired the 1606 Portrait of Maria di Antonio Serra by Sir Peter Paul Rubens . In 1841, after being caught in a homosexual scandal that could have resulted in

3268-407: The house. Pratt's original plans have been lost, but extensive notes on his intentions have survived. On each of the two main floors he placed identical apartments about 20 ft (6 m) square at the four corners, each with two 10 ft (3 m) square closets at their outer end. This provided flexibility of use for the rooms. Two of the inner closets housed servants' stairs. The two ends of

3344-529: The house. The formal gardens and pleasure grounds are situated close to the house, with an area of informal pleasure grounds extending to the south-east. Two features are the Cedar Walk and the Lime Walk, both majestic avenues to the south of the house, as well as a plantation known as Blind Wood. There is a terrace in front of the house with urns and vases, overlooking an extensive lawned area. Other features include

3420-435: The household. These houses were always an alternative residence to a London house. During the 18th and 19th centuries, for the highest echelons of English society, the country house served as a place for relaxing, hunting and running the country with one's equals at the end of the week, with some houses having their own theatre where performances were staged. The country house, however, was not just an oasis of pleasure for

3496-551: The immediately preceding war then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes had dropped. Thus, the solution for many was to hold contents auctions and then demolish the house and sell its stone, fireplaces , and panelling . This is what happened to many of Britain's finest houses. Despite this slow decline, so necessary was the country house for entertaining and prestige that in 1917 Viscount Lee of Fareham donated his country house Chequers to

3572-438: The income they provided. Some relied on funds from secondary sources such as banking and trade while others, like the severely impoverished Duke of Marlborough , sought to marry American heiresses to save their country houses and lifestyles. The ultimate demise began immediately following World War I . The members of the huge staff required to maintain large houses had either left to fight and never returned, departed to work in

3648-484: The landscape, while some of the great houses such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall were built as "power houses" to dominate the landscape, and were most certainly intended to be "stately" and impressive. In his book Historic Houses: Conversations in Stately Homes , the author and journalist Robert Harling documents nineteen "stately homes"; these range in size from the vast Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard to

3724-415: The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifestyle. Increased taxation and the effects of World War I led to the demolition of hundreds of houses ; those that remained had to adapt to survive. While a château or a Schloss can be a fortified or unfortified building, a country house, similar to an Ansitz , is usually unfortified. If fortified, it

3800-540: The latter two are ducal palaces, Montacute, although built by a Master of the Rolls to Queen Elizabeth I, was occupied for the next 400 years by his descendants, who were gentry without a London townhouse , rather than aristocracy. They finally ran out of funds in the early 20th century. However, the vast majority of English country houses, often owned at different times by gentlemen and peers , are an evolution of one or more styles with facades and wings in different styles in

3876-530: The local landowners, who regularly chose their own solicitors, surveyors and commissioners to decide on each case. In 1786 there were still 250,000 independent landowners, but in the course of only thirty years their number was reduced to 32,000. The tenants displaced by the process often left the countryside to work in the towns. This contributed to the Industrial Revolution – at the very moment new technological advances required large numbers of workers,

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3952-639: The minuscule Ebberston Hall , and in architecture from the Jacobean Renaissance of Hatfield House to the eccentricities of Sezincote . The book's collection of stately homes also includes George IV's Brighton town palace, the Royal Pavilion . The country houses of England have evolved over the last five hundred years. Before this time, larger houses were usually fortified, reflecting the position of their owners as feudal lords , de facto overlords of their manors . The Tudor period of stability in

4028-416: The most eminent guests, the entertainment of whom was of paramount importance in establishing and maintaining the power of the owner. The common denominator of this category of English country houses is that they were designed to be lived in with a certain degree of ceremony and pomp. It was not unusual for the family to have a small suite of rooms for withdrawing in privacy away from the multitude that lived in

4104-399: The munitions factories, or filled the void left by the fighting men in other workplaces. Of those who returned after the war, many left the countryside for better-paid jobs in towns. The final blow for many country houses came following World War II ; having been requisitioned during the war, they were returned to the owners in poor repair. Many estate owners, having lost their heirs, if not in

4180-468: The names of houses to describe their origin or importance include palace , castle , court , hall , mansion , park , house , manor , and place . It was during the second half of the reign of Elizabeth I , and under her successor, James I , that the first architect-designed mansions, thought of today as epitomising the English country house, began to make their appearance. Burghley House , Longleat House , and Hatfield House are among

4256-450: The nation for the use of a prime minister who might not possess one of his or her own. Chequers still fulfills that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood , donated for sole use of high-ranking ministers of the Crown. Today, many country houses have become hotels, schools, hospitals and museums, while others have survived as conserved ruins, but from the early 20th century until

4332-468: The owner of a "power house" or a small manor, the inhabitants of the English country house have become collectively referred to as the ruling class, because this is exactly what they did in varying degrees, whether by having high political influence and power in national government, or in the day-to-day running of their own localities or "county" in such offices as lord/deputy lieutenant , magistrates , or occasionally even clergy. The Country house mystery

4408-521: The owner's twelve children. Canons Ashby , home to poet John Dryden 's family, is another example of architectural evolution: a medieval farmhouse enlarged in the Tudor era around a courtyard, given grandiose plaster ceilings in the Stuart period , and then having Georgian façades added in the 18th century. The whole is a glorious mismatch of styles and fashions that seamlessly blend together. These could be called

4484-502: The ownership or management of some houses has been transferred to a private trust , most notably at Chatsworth , other houses have transferred art works and furnishings under the Acceptance in Lieu scheme to ownership by various national or local museums, but retained for display in the building. This enables the former owners to offset tax, the payment of which would otherwise have necessitated

4560-457: The private sale of the art works. For example, tapestries and furniture at Houghton Hall are now owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum . In addition, increasing numbers of country houses hold licences for weddings and civil ceremonies . Another source of income is to use the house as a venue for parties, a film location or a corporate entertainment venue. While many country houses are open to

4636-467: The public and derive income through that means, they remain homes, in some cases inhabited by the descendants of their original owners. The lifestyles of those living and working in a country house in the early 20th century were recreated in a BBC television programme, The Edwardian Country House , filmed at Manderston House in Scotland. Another television programme which features life in country houses

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4712-554: The red brick hall in stone, and enlarge his other property Soughton Hall . Barry remodelled Kingston Lacy between 1835 and 1838. The work involved facing the brick with Chilmark stone , adding a tall chimney at each corner, and lowering the ground level on one side to expose the basement level and form a new principal entrance. He planted beech tree avenues along the Blandford Road, of which some 2 + 1 ⁄ 4 miles (3.6 km) survives. William John Bankes collected most of

4788-417: The restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Bankes family regained their properties. Rather than rebuild Corfe Castle, the eldest son Ralph Bankes built a house on their other Dorset estate near Wimborne Minster . In 1663, he commissioned Sir Roger Pratt to design a new house to be known as Kingston Hall on the current site, based on Clarendon House which he had visited several times. Construction started

4864-464: The same year, and was completed by 1665. The design, like Pratt's other large country house Horseheath Manor in Cambridgeshire, was much influenced by Chevening . Like that house, the hall is two storeys high, though the great stair has been moved from the centre of the house" Instead the great stair and the back stairs are situated symmetrically on either side of the hall, on the main long axis of

4940-459: The season: Grouse shooting in Scotland , pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England. The Earl of Rosebery , for instance, had Dalmeny House in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, and another house near Epsom just for the racing season. For many, this way of life, which began a steady decline in 1914, continued well into the 20th century, and for a few continues to this day. In

5016-444: The second category of Britain's country houses are those that belonged to the squirearchy or landed gentry . These tend either to have evolved from medieval hall houses, with rooms added as required, or were purpose-built by relatively unknown local architects. Smaller, and far greater in number than the "power houses", these were still the epicentre of their own estate, but were often the only residence of their owner. However, whether

5092-489: The seventeenth, late eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, together with late nineteenth-century formal gardens and informal pleasure grounds." The estate comprises about 159 hectares (393 acres) of parkland and other ornamental land and about 5 hectares (12 acres) of gardens. The site slopes gently towards the southwest and includes the summit of the Iron Age hillfort of Badbury Rings towards its northwest extremity, and within

5168-471: The strips owned by the lord in return for cultivating his land. The system facilitated common grazing and crop rotation . Any individual might possess several strips of land within the manor, often at some distance from one another. Seeking better financial returns, landowners looked for more efficient farming techniques. Enclosure acts for small areas had been passed sporadically since the 12th century, but advances in agricultural knowledge and technology in

5244-488: The true English country house. Wilton House , one of England's grandest houses, is in a remarkably similar vein; although, while the Drydens, mere squires, at Canons Ashby employed a local architect, at Wilton the mighty Earls of Pembroke employed the finest architects of the day: first Holbein , 150 years later Inigo Jones, and then Wyatt followed by Chambers. Each employed a different style of architecture, seemingly unaware of

5320-448: Was a popular genre of English detective fiction in the 1920s and 1930s; set in the residence of the gentry and often involving a murder in a country house temporarily isolated by a snowstorm or similar with the suspects all at a weekend house party. Following the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, a third category of country houses was built as newly rich industrialists and bankers were eager to display their wealth and taste. By

5396-458: Was a trustee for the British Museum and its parliamentary advocate, and some of his collections which were once part of the house, are now in the museum. Bankes entertained his friends at the house, including William Pitt the Younger and Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington . Bankes' son, the explorer and adventurer William John Bankes , commissioned his friend Charles Barry to encase

5472-607: Was born in Cumberland , but through his extensive legal works had acquired sufficient funds to purchase the Corfe estate. During the Civil War , the Bankes family remained loyal to the crown; Sir John died at Oxford in December 1644, the King having retired there for the winter. Left to fend for herself during two sieges, his wife Mary Bankes defended Corfe Castle , but it eventually fell to

5548-514: Was discovered in the collection in 2008. Apart from the Spanish Room, the library is the most atmospheric of rooms, upon the wall of which are hung the huge keys of the destroyed Corfe Castle, handed back to Mary Bankes after her defence of Corfe Castle during the Civil War. The state bedroom is extremely ornate and has housed such important guests as Kaiser Wilhelm II who stayed with the family for

5624-404: Was land without value as a farm strip – often very narrow areas (typically less than a yard wide) in awkward locations (such as cliff edges, or inconveniently shaped manorial borders), but also bare rock, and similar. "Waste" was not officially used by anyone, and so was often farmed by landless peasants. The remaining land was organised into a large number of narrow strips, each tenant possessing

5700-412: Was recently restored at a cost of several hundred thousand pounds over a five-year period. Other important collections include paintings of the Bankes family stretching back over 400 years. Other artworks include The Judgement of Solomon by Sebastiano del Piombo and works by Diego Velázquez , Anthony van Dyck , Titian and Jan Brueghel the Younger . A portrait of Nicolò Zen the younger by Titian

5776-422: Was to predominate until the second half of the 18th century when, influenced by ancient Greek styles, it gradually evolved into the neoclassicism championed by such architects as Robert Adam . Some of the best known of England's country houses were the work of only one architect/designer, built in a relatively short, particular time: Montacute House , Chatsworth House , and Blenheim Palace are examples. While

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