74-573: Tatton Hall is a country house in Tatton Park near Knutsford , Cheshire , England. It is designated as a Grade I listed building and is open to the public. The original manor house in Tatton Park was Tatton Old Hall . Around 1716 a new hall was built in a more elevated position on the site of the present mansion some 0.75 miles (1 km) to the west. This house was a rectangular block of seven bays with three storeys . From 1758
148-405: A box cornice, a close or closed cornice, or an open cornice. Box cornices enclose the cornice of the building with what is essentially a long, narrow box. A box cornice may further be divided into either the narrow box cornice or the wide box cornice type. A narrow box cornice is one in which "the projection of the rafter serves as a nailing surface for the soffit board as well as
222-455: 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 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
296-676: 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, 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
370-607: A walnut chest dating from around 1730, and a 19th-century walnut table and chairs. On each side of a central niche are marble busts of the Duke of Wellington and William Pitt the Younger on columns. The largest painting in the entrance hall is The Cheshire Hunt, 1839 by Henry Calvert. To the west of the entrance hall is the Card Room (where calling cards were left – not for playing cards, as in other Card Rooms). This room has
444-541: A bookcase. A projecting cornice on a building has the function of throwing rainwater free of its walls. In residential building practice, this function is handled by projecting gable ends, roof eaves , and gutters . However, house eaves may also be called "cornices" if they are finished with decorative moulding. In this sense, while most cornices are also eaves (overhanging the sides of the building), not all eaves are usually considered cornices. Eaves are primarily functional and not necessarily decorative, while cornices have
518-700: 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 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
592-434: A decorative aspect. A building's projecting cornice may appear to be heavy and hence in danger of falling, particularly on commercial buildings, but it often is actually very light and made of pressed metal. In Ancient Greek architecture and its successors using the classical orders in the tradition of classical architecture , the cornice is the topmost element of the entablature , which consists (from top to bottom) of
666-428: 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
740-529: 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
814-581: A neoclassical cornice and fireplace. A set of open arm chairs are English in the Adam style which date from around 1785. Other furniture dates from the 19th century in Louis XVI marquetry style. In a showcase is a rare silver filigree Horn Book . Paintings in the room include La Gouvernante by Chardin , The Head of an Old Man, 1639 by Abraham Bloemaert , A Farrier's by Philips Wouwerman , and Head of Nicodemus after Rogier van der Weyden . On
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#1732791800798888-401: A reduced scale, by Wilbraham Egerton and Lewis William Wyatt , Samuel Wyatt's nephew. Samuel Wyatt had planned a house of eleven bays, but Lewis reduced this to seven. Wilbraham bought a number of fine paintings, and many items of furniture made by Gillows of Lancaster . In 1861–62 an upper floor was added to the family wing to a design by G. H. Stokes. In 1884 a family entrance hall
962-661: Is a cut-down four poster bed . The Silk Dressing Room contains a large tin bath on castors . The other bedrooms are the Chintz Bedroom, which is furnished as a sitting room, the Lemon Bedroom, and the Amber Bedroom, which is furnished as a Victorian day nursery. Most of the paintings in the bedrooms depict family members. The Egerton Room was originally the Blue Bedroom but, with its dressing room,
1036-401: Is a simple return without these features. The term cornice may also be used to describe a form of hard window treatment along the top edge of a window. In this context, a cornice represents a board (usually wood) placed above the window to conceal the mechanism for opening and closing drapes. If covered in a layer of cloth and given padding, it is sometimes called a soft cornice rather than
1110-411: Is an architectural term for an eave or cornice that runs along the gable of the roof of a modern residential structure. It may also be called a sloping cornice , a raking cornice . The trim and rafters at this edge are called rakes , rake board , rake fascia , verge-boards , barge-boards or verge- or barge-rafters . It is a sloped timber on the outside facing edge of a roof running between
1184-630: Is by Bartolomeo Nazari . Behind the portico on the south front of the house is the Library. The furniture in this room is practical rather than decorative, most of it again having been made by Gillows. The bookcases date from 1811 to 1812. The pair of globes , terrestrial and celestial, were made by the Cary family. On top of the bookcases are Dutch Delft vases and jars from the 17th–18th centuries. The room contains over 8,000 books, many in their original covers and in mint condition . The earliest book
1258-590: Is dated 1513. Some of the books are unbound and in their original paper covers, including first editions of two novels by Jane Austen . Other than a portrait of Charles II , all the paintings in the library are portraits of members of the Egerton family. To the west of the Library is the Dining Room. This is a survival from the original house and is decorated in rococo style designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard . The white marble fireplace dates from 1840 and
1332-420: Is made from white marble and is decorated with images of musical instruments and motifs. Two vases on the mantelpiece are 19th-century Meissen . The harpsichord was made by Kirckman's and is dated 1789. The paintings include pieces by Gaspard Dughet , Aernout van der Neer , Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem , and Guercino , and two still life paintings by Jan Davidszoon de Heem and Cornelis de Heem . To
1406-552: Is now used for an exhibition about the Egerton family. In addition to family portraits, the paintings in these rooms include schemes for the design of the house by the architects, and paintings of architectural features by J. C. Buckler . There are also three paintings of excavations for the Manchester Ship Canal by Benjamin Williams Leader . Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton was the second chairman of
1480-473: 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
1554-648: Is seen in Syria and ancient Iran , for example at the Tachara palace of Darius I at Persepolis , completed in 486 BC. Inspired by this precedent, it was then revived by Ardashir I (r. 224–41 AD), the founder of the Sasanian dynasty . The cavetto took the place of the cymatium in many Etruscan temples, often painted with vertical "tongue" patterns, and combined with the distinctive "Etruscan round moulding", often painted with scales. A typical example may be seen at
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#17327918007981628-436: Is sometimes also known as an "Egyptian cornice", "hollow and roll" or "gorge cornice". It has been suggested to be a reminiscence in stone architecture of the primitive use of bound bunches of reeds as supports for buildings, the weight of the roof bending their tops out. The cavetto cornice, often forming less than a quarter-circle, influenced Egypt's neighbours and as well as appearing in early Ancient Greek architecture , it
1702-573: Is the ITV series Downton Abbey . Cornice In architecture , a cornice (from the Italian cornice meaning "ledge" ) is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a pedestal, or along the top of an interior wall. A simple cornice may be formed with a crown, as in crown moulding atop an interior wall or above kitchen cabinets or
1776-399: The agricultural depressions of the 1870s , the estates, of which country houses were the hub, provided their owners with incomes. However, 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
1850-405: The reconstructed Etruscan temple at Villa Giulia . Additional more obscure varieties of cornice include the architrave cornice, bracketed cornice, and modillion cornice. A cornice return is an architectural detail that occurs where a roof's horizontal cornice connects to a gable's rake. It is a short horizontal extension of the cornice that occurs on each side of the gable end of
1924-430: The ridge and the eave . On a typical house, any gable will have two rakes, one on each sloped side. The rakes are often supported by a series of lookouts (sometimes also called strong arms ) and may be trimmed with a rake fascia board (which is not a true fascia ) on the outside facing edge and a rake soffit along the bottom. The cornices of a modern residential building will usually be one of three types:
1998-567: 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
2072-419: 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
2146-474: 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
2220-590: The Egerton family to live in the hall was Maurice Egerton. He made a large collection of objects from around the world, some which are on display in the hall. On his death in 1958 Maurice Egerton bequeathed the mansion and gardens to the National Trust . The main body of the hall and the family wing to the west, both in two storeys, are built in ashlar Runcorn sandstone with slate and lead roofs. The additions of 1884 (family entrance hall and smoking room) are faced in yellow terracotta . The south front of
2294-577: The Manchester Ship Canal Company from 1887 to 1894. The dressing room includes paintings by Vasari and Tosini . Entering the family wing from the hall, the first room on the left, beyond the garden entrance, is the Yellow Drawing Room. This has a more intimate atmosphere and contains a collection of satinwood furniture made by Gillows. This includes a bookcase dated 1795 and a pair of cabinets on each side of
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2368-467: 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 ,
2442-453: The building (see picture of Härnösands rådhus with two of these). The two most common types of cornice return are the Greek return and the soffit return (also called a boxed or box soffit return). The former includes a sloped hip shape on the inside of the cornice under the eaves, which is sheathed or shingled like the rest of the roof above it and is considered very attractive; the latter
2516-524: 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
2590-430: The cornice, the frieze , and the architrave . Where a triangular pediment is above the entablature, the cornice continues all round the triangle, the two sides being "raking cornices". The vertical space below the cornice is typically decorated by dentils (little teeth) or the larger modillions . The soffit , or horizontal space under a projecting cornice, may be elaborately carved with vegetal designs. A rake
2664-434: The cornice. A closed or snub cornice is one in which there is no projection of the rafters beyond the walls of the building and, therefore, no soffit or fascia. This type of cornice is easy to construct but provides little aid in dispersing water away from the building and is sometimes considered to lack aesthetic value. In an open cornice, the shape of the cornice is similar to that of a wide box cornice, except that both
2738-523: 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
2812-428: 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
2886-427: 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
2960-414: The fascia trim." This is possible if the slope of the roof is fairly steep and the width of the eave relatively narrow. A wide box cornice, a common practice on houses with gentle roof slopes and wide eaves, requires lookouts to support it and provide a surface to attach the soffits securely. Box cornices often have ventilation screens laid over openings cut in the soffits to allow air to circulate within
3034-538: The fireplace. The paintings are family portraits. Opposite this room is the Family Entrance and opposite the garden entrance is the Oak Staircase which was moved here from Hough End Hall . The Servants' Quarters occupy two floors, the ground floor and basement. These contain the usual rooms required to service a mansion and many of these are furnished with the equipment and utensils formerly in use in
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3108-416: The hall has seven bays. At its centre is a large Corinthian portico with four monolithic columns. The north front is simpler in design, also with seven bays, and it has a pedimented porch with two columns. The east front has five bays with Corinthian pilasters on a slightly projecting plinth and an entablature above. The family wing has seven bays. The south front has a Tuscan colonnade on
3182-479: 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
3256-505: The house. One room, known as the Maurice Egerton Exhibition Room, houses a collection of items from around the world which were collected by Maurice Egerton on his travels. In the basement of Tatton Hall is a 400 mm gauge coal railway supplied by Decauville . It was used to transport coal to the boilers of the heating system. The railway may date from the time of the 1884 conversion, when an entrance hall
3330-435: 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
3404-556: 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
3478-438: 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
3552-549: The king, which probably saved their lives and their estates. The bedrooms are named mainly after the type or colour of the original drapery. All the bedrooms, except the Lemon Room, have adjoining dressing rooms. The furniture in all the rooms was supplied by Gillows. The Silk Bedroom is above the Entrance Hall and was one of the principal guest rooms. It contains furniture of mahogany inlaid with ebony . The bed
3626-491: 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
3700-544: 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
3774-421: The lookouts and the soffit are absent. It is a lower-cost treatment that requires fewer materials and may even have no fascia board, but it lacks the finished appearance of a box cornice. Ancient Egyptian architectural tradition made special use of large cavetto mouldings as a cornice, with only a short fillet (plain vertical face) above, and a torus moulding (convex semi-circle) below. This cavetto cornice
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#17327918007983848-435: The lower storey and an Ionic colonnade, verandah and balustrade above. Not all of the rooms are open to the public. The major rooms that are open are described below. The Entrance Hall is in three bays. It is decorated in neoclassical style with a marble floor, red porphyry Ionic columns and a geometric coffered , tunnel vaulted ceiling. The furniture includes two late-17th-century Italian chests of drawers and
3922-655: 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
3996-416: 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
4070-399: 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
4144-468: 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
4218-454: 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
4292-561: The other side of the Entrance Hall is the Music Room whose walls are decorated with cherry-coloured silk damask . Much of the furniture is in the French Boulle revival style (with brass inlays in the style of André Charles Boulle ). An alcove was intended to be occupied by an organ but it contains a rosewood bookcase in boulle work. The circular table, couches and chairs are also in boulle style, made by Gillows. The fireplace
4366-459: The owner Samuel Egerton began to make improvements to the house, in particular a rococo interior to his drawing room (now the dining room), designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard . During the 1770s Samuel Egerton commissioned Samuel Wyatt to design a house in Neoclassical style. Both Samuel Egerton and Samuel Wyatt died before the house was finished, and it was completed (1807–16), on
4440-468: 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
4514-529: 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
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#17327918007984588-512: 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
4662-462: 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
4736-472: 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
4810-519: 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
4884-444: 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
4958-604: The signs of the Zodiac for the winter months. The halls contain English furniture in Adam style and items of oriental ceramics . On the walls of the upper landing are ten full-length portraits known as The Cheshire Gentlemen . They portray ten of the leading gentlemen of the county who met together at Ashley Hall to decide whether to support King George I or James Stuart in the Jacobite rising of 1715 . They decided to support
5032-579: The south of the music room is the Drawing Room which is decorated in a similar style. The ceiling is gilded and coffered and is decorated with rosettes . Together with its elaborate furniture it is the "most impressive and ostentatious room in the house". The paintings include two views of Venice by Canaletto , The Sacrifice of Noah by Poussin , The Martyrdom of St. Stephen by Van Dyck , and paintings by Annibale Carracci and Giovanni Battista Cimaroli . A full-length portrait of Samuel Egerton
5106-493: 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
5180-520: 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
5254-580: Was added to the north face, and a smoking room to the extreme west of the family wing, and electricity was installed in the hall. During the later part of the 19th century Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton , hosted large house parties in the hall. Eminent guests included the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1887, and at later dates the Shah of Persia and the Crown Prince of Siam . The last member of
5328-540: Was added to the north side and a smoking room to the west side. Tatton Hall was designated as a Grade I listed building on 5 March 1959. The hall is financed on behalf of the National Trust by Cheshire East Council. The house is open to the public at advertised times. Citations Sources Country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned
5402-600: Was designed by Richard Westmacott . Most of the furniture in the room is made in mahogany by Gillows. The paintings in the room are all portraits of the Egerton family. In the centre of the building are the main stairs. These rise from the Staircase Hall which is lit by a domed oval skylight. To east of this hall, through two pairs of marble columns, is the Cupola Hall. On its floor is an Axminster carpet with an unusual design showing celestial objects and
5476-422: 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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