65-554: Osmaston Hall was a country house built in 1696 in extensive grounds at Osmaston , Derbyshire , now an area of the city of Derby . The house was the home of the Wilmot baronets , and the Fox family before being used for a golf club and railway business. It was demolished in 1938, with the site now occupied by an industrial estate. Osmaston Hall was built in 1696 in brick and stone for Robert Wilmot, High Sheriff of Derbyshire in 1689. Robert had
130-596: A French style; the term is additionally often used for a winegrower's estate, especially in the Bordeaux region of France . The word château is a French word that has entered the English language, where its meaning is more specific than it is in French. The French word château denotes buildings as diverse as a medieval fortress, a Renaissance palace and a fine 19th-century country house. Care should therefore be taken when translating
195-494: A city. This usage is again different from that of the term "palace" in English, where there is no requirement that a palace must be in a city, but the word palais is rarely used for buildings other than the grandest royal residences. The term hôtel particulier is used in French for an urban "private house" of a grand sort. A château is a "power house", as Sir John Summerson dubbed the British and Irish " stately homes " that are
260-553: A document store. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway continued to use the hall as a store until they had the building, the adjoining farm, and the stables demolished in 1938. The grounds were purchased by Derby City Council in 1946–7. Today the grounds are occupied by the Ascot Drive Industrial estate in Derby, although part of the estate's farmland remains as Osmaston Park. Country house An English country house
325-495: A fine art collection which included numerous paintings. The house and gardens were reportedly sold for £86,000. At the time of the purchase, the hall had been the home of the Reverend Sir George Lewis Wilmot-Horton, Bart. (who died in 1887). It was the home to William Darwin Fox who was a second cousin and close friend of Charles Darwin , who stayed at the hall. The Fox family were renting the house from
390-428: 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
455-524: 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
520-425: Is a large house or mansion in 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
585-514: Is a royal château in Versailles , in the Île-de-France region of France. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to
650-500: 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
715-473: 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
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#1732869778917780-532: Is the ITV series Downton Abbey . Ch%C3%A2teau A château ( French pronunciation: [ʃɑto] ; plural: châteaux ) is a manor house , or palace , or residence of the lord of the manor , or a fine country house of nobility or gentry , with or without fortifications , originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowadays, a château may be any stately residence built in
845-448: The Château de Dampierre is a French Baroque château of manageable size. Protected behind fine wrought iron double gates, the main block and its outbuildings ( corps de logis ), linked by balustrades, are ranged symmetrically around a dry paved and gravelled cour d'honneur . Behind, the central axis is extended between the former parterres , now mown hay. The park with formally shaped water
910-483: The Gilded Age resort town of Newport, Rhode Island , large manor homes were called "cottages", but north of Wilmington, Delaware , in the rich, rural "Château Country" centred upon the powerful Du Pont family , the word château is used with its original definition. In Canada, especially in English, château usually denotes a hotel, not a house, and applies only to the country's most elaborate railway hotels , built during
975-502: The Reform Act 1832 . Frequently, 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,
1040-507: The garçonnière ). Besides the cour d'honneur (court of honour) entrance, the château might have an inner cour ("court"), and inside, in the private residence, the château faces a simply and discreetly enclosed park. In the city of Paris, the Louvre (fortified) and the Luxembourg Palace (the latter originally suburban) were originally referred to as châteaux, but became "palaces" when
1105-502: 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
1170-419: 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
1235-481: 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
1300-474: 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
1365-582: The British Isles' architectural counterparts to French châteaux. It is the personal (and usually hereditary) badge of a family that, with some official rank, locally represents the royal authority; thus, the word château often refers to the dwelling of a member of either the French nobility or royalty. However, some fine châteaux, such as Vaux-le-Vicomte , were built by the essentially high- bourgeois —people but recently ennobled : tax-farmers and ministers of Louis XIII and his royal successors. The quality of
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#17328697789171430-968: The Canadian railroad golden age, such as the Château Lake Louise in Lake Louise, Alberta , the Château Laurier in Ottawa, the Château Montebello in Montebello, Quebec , and most famously, the Château Frontenac in Quebec City . There are many estates with true châteaux on them in the Bordeaux wine regions , but it is customary for any wine-producing estate since the 19th century, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château". This term became
1495-662: The French kings followed soon thereafter by the nobility; hence, the Valley is termed " The Valley of the Kings ". Alternatively, due to its moderate climate, wine-growing soils and rich agricultural land, the Loire Valley is referred to as " The Garden of France ". The châteaux range from the very large (often now in public hands) to more 'human-scale' châteaux such as the Château de Beaulieu in Saumur or
1560-417: The French word château into English, noting the nature of the building in question. Most French châteaux are " palaces " or fine " country houses " rather than "castles", and for these, the word "château" is appropriate in English. Sometimes the word "palace" is more appropriate. To give an outstanding example, the Château de Versailles , also called in French le palais de Versailles , is so-called because it
1625-579: The Wilmot family associated with the house include not only the first three Wilmot baronets of Osmaston but also Sir John Eardley Wilmot , who rose to be Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas . Its grounds covered 250 acres (1.0 km) and included a small lake. The Wilmot family lived on the estate for almost 200 years. Before it was purchased in 1890 by the Midland Railway Company it contained
1690-467: 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 ,
1755-520: 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
1820-461: The city enclosed them. In other French-speaking European regions, such as Wallonia ( Belgium ), the word château is used with the same definition as in France. In Belgium, a strong French architectural influence is evident in the seventeenth-century Château des Comtes de Marchin and the eighteenth-century Château de Seneffe . In the United States, the word château took root selectively – in
1885-513: 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
1950-578: The default way of designating an estate in Bordeaux , in the same way that Domaine did in Burgundy . Both Château and Domaine are aristocratic in implication, but Bordeaux had a better claim to the association: nobles had owned Bordeaux's best vineyards for centuries. Most of Burgundy's best vineyards, in contrast, had been owned by the Church. The term Château became a permanent verbal fixture in Bordeaux, and it
2015-428: 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
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2080-427: 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
2145-473: 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
2210-454: The house rebuilt in 1702 and during the eighteenth century, there were further additions and changes not only to the house but also to its gardens and to the extensive grounds. The Wilmot family were based at this house until the marriage of Sir Robert Wilmot-Horton, 3rd Baronet to Anne Beatrix Horton , the heiress of Catton Hall in 1823, whereupon the Wilmot family conjoined Horton to its name and changed its main residence. Notable members of
2275-435: 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
2340-551: 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
2405-438: 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
2470-629: The king soon after the end of the Hundred years war. The French dramatist Alexandre Dumas made the château de Montsoreau world famous with his trilogy on the French Wars of Religion of which the lady of Monsoreau is the second volume. The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy , near Melun , 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. It
2535-484: 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
2600-415: 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
2665-540: 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
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2730-546: The medieval Château du Rivau close to Chinon which were built of the local tuffeau stone. The Château de Chenonceau is a French château spanning the river Cher, near the small village of Chenonceaux in the Indre-et-Loire department of the Loire Valley in France. It is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire Valley. The estate of Chenonceau is first mentioned in writing in the 11th century. The current château
2795-639: 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
2860-416: 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
2925-399: 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
2990-468: 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
3055-450: 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
3120-463: The owner Sir Robert Wilmot, Bart . In October 1892, the hall was the location of a nine-hole golf course and was the home of the 120-member Derbyshire Golf Club. Within six years there were nearly 200 members including several notable gentry. Although the hall offered a home, the club obtained a course at Littleover . After the departure of the golf club, the Midland Railway used the building as
3185-468: 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
3250-521: 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
3315-502: 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
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#17328697789173380-457: 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
3445-467: 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
3510-506: The residences could vary considerably, from grand châteaux owned by royalty and the wealthy elite near larger towns to run-down châteaux vacated by poor nobility and officials in the countryside, isolated and vulnerable. A château was historically supported by its terres (lands), composing a demesne that rendered the society of the château largely self-sufficient, in the manner of the historic Roman and early medieval villa system (cf. manorialism , hacienda ). The open villas of Rome in
3575-509: 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
3640-444: 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
3705-506: The times of Pliny the Elder , Maecenas , and Emperor Tiberius began to be walled-in, and then fortified in the 3rd century AD, thus evolving to castellar "châteaux". In modern usage, a château retains some enclosures that are distant descendants of these fortifying outworks : a fenced, gated, closeable forecourt, perhaps a gatehouse or a keeper's lodge, and supporting outbuildings (stables, kitchens, breweries, bakeries, manservant quarters in
3770-488: 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
3835-511: 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
3900-473: Was built by Louis Le Vau from 1658 to 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet , Marquis de Belle-Isle ( Belle-Île-en-Mer ), Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances of Louis XIV . The interior was lavishly decorated by painter Charles Le Brun . Louis Le Vau as well as Charles Le Brun were later called by Louis XIV to work at Versailles. The Palace of Versailles , or in French Château de Versailles ,
3965-467: Was built in 1514–1522 on the foundations of an old mill and was later extended to span the river. The bridge over the river was built from 1556 to 1559 to designs by the French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme , and the gallery on the bridge, built from 1570 to 1576 to designs by Jean Bullant . Built by Jules Hardouin-Mansart , 1675–1683 for the duc de Chevreuse , Colbert 's son-in-law,
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#17328697789174030-412: Was emulated in other French regions and outside France. The winery denomination Château is now protected by French law, and confirmed in 1981 by European Union law, as "traditional appellation". The term Château may be used only if two conditions are fulfilled: The Loire Valley (Vallée de la Loire) is home to more than 300 châteaux . They were built between the 10th and 20th centuries, firstly by
4095-448: Was laid out by André Le Notre . The Château de Montsoreau is the only Château of the Loire Valley to have been built directly in the Loire riverbed. It is also one of the first example of a renaissance architecture in France. Montsoreau was built in 1453 by Jean II de Chambes (first counsellor of Charles VII of France and ambassador of France to Venice and to Turkey ) by order of
4160-482: Was located in the countryside when it was built, but it does not bear any resemblance to a castle, so it is usually known in English as the Palace of Versailles. When clarification is needed in French, the term château fort is used to describe a fortified castle, such as the Château fort de Roquetaillade . The urban counterpart of a château is a palais in French, which is usually applied only to very grand residences in
4225-422: 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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