COUNTRY HOUSE ANTIQUES FOR SALE

ANGLO-INDIAN SIDE TABLE

Very fine Anglo-Indian (possibly Burmese) tripod occasional table in Indian hardwood, finely carved with beautiful flowers, fruits and plants.

Height 0.680, Diameter 0.540

Price £950.00 (AF1)

DEFINING THE COUNTRY HOUSE

Subject to qualifications which are discussed below, a country house will once have been the centrepiece of an agricultural estate large enough to provide the landowner with sufficient income to be accepted as a member of either the aristocracy or the gentry. In the 19th century and earlier this generally required an estate of at least a thousand acres (4 km²) of land. A few landowners owned more than a hundred times this minimum, and this inequality within the ruling class is reflected in the range of country houses which were built.

A country house may be built in any architectural style. It will probably have at least 25 rooms and at least 8,000 square feet (740 m²) of floor space, including service rooms. There are many designations which are used by a large number of houses, such as "house", "hall", "castle", "park", "palace", "court", "abbey", "priory", or "grange", and this often reveals something about its history, especially if it originated before 1800. On the other hand, the name may have been chosen on the whim of the owner, especially if the house was built after 1800. For example, many country houses which are designated "castle" never had any military purpose.

Most country houses have large grounds comprised of a garden in the immediate vicinity of the house, and a larger park beyond the garden which is grazed by animals, but also has aesthetic and recreational purposes. Many of the finest gardens in Britain are country house gardens.
A country house is typically several hundred metres from any other houses, but it may be close to the centre of a village or even close to the centre of a small town. (The larger the settlement the larger the house will need to be to retain its status as a "country house"-Alnwick Castle is an example of a very large house which is in a town, but is generally perceived to be a country house.)

On the other hand, some large houses in Britain that were built in rural locations are now surrounded by suburban sprawl. However, these may still be referred to as country houses in some contexts, especially by architectural historians. Syon Park in the suburbs of London is an example of this.
In Britain and Ireland, the term country house is not simply a house in a rural location. It generally refers to a large house, large enough to be regarded as a mansion, which was built on an agricultural estate as the private residence of the landowner. There are several types of smaller houses which are common in the British countryside, but are not "country houses" in the sense in which the term is generally used, these include farmhouses, cottages, rectories, oast houses and barn conversions; anyone who owns one of these and refers to it as their "country house" is likely to be considered extremely pretentious by most people in Britain. (Current usage errs towards the opposite tendency of referring to medium-sized homes in the country as "cottages", especially if they are "second homes".)
The term stately home is closely related to "country house", but it does not have quite the same meaning. "Country house" is the term usually preferred by architectural historians and by the owners of the houses. On the other hand, the term "stately home" is frequently used in the media, by tourist operators and members of the public. When someone refers to a "stately home", they are probably thinking of one of the largest and grandest ten per cent of country houses, especially those which are open to the public.

Who built the houses, and why

The architectural historian Mark Girouard argues in Life in the English Country House, that country houses were essentially "power houses" built to enhance the ability of the owners to influence local and national politics. Some of the great houses, such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall, were certainly built to impress and to dominate the landscape. It should also be noted that not all country house builders had an interest in politics, even in an informal sense. Nevertheless, country houses often served as meeting places for the ruling class to discuss, for example, election campaigns. Also, many country house owners and members of their families served as Lord Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace, and local courts were still sometimes held in country houses well into the 19th century; this practice was a holdover from the Medieval manor courts. Country-house-owning members of the aristocracy and gentry continued, in diminishing degrees, to hold high office into the twentieth century. Lord Carrington was perhaps the last of this breed.

In the 19th Century, the political power of the landowning class began its slow decline with the Great Reform Act of 1832, and the new class of industrialists slowly began, in many cases, to eclipse the wealth of the aristocracy and gentry. Many of these men bought or built new country houses, and the previously vital link to land ownership was slowly eroded. Some late 19th- and early 20th-century houses, such as Cragside, were never supported by an agricultural estate.
The vast majority of country houses in Britain and Ireland were built before 1914.

Life in the country house

Social structures

The country house was the centre of its own world, providing employment to literally 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 these fortunate people were the indoor staff of the country house. Until the 20th century, unlike many of their contemporaries, they slept in proper beds, wore well-made, adequate clothes, received three proper meals a day and a small wage. In an era when many still died for lack of medicine or from malnutrition, the long working hours were a small price to pay. The 2001 movie Gosford Park, set in 1932, accurately recreated the stratified and repressed but secure atmosphere of the English country house just surviving into the post-World War I age.
The richer aristocrats owned more than one country house and would visit each according to the season (grouse shooting in Scotland, and pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England). The Earl of Rosebery, for instance, had Dalmeny in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire and another near Epsom just for the racing season.

Old and new money

Changes in the country house lifestyle since 1830
In 1830 the first passenger railway in England was opened, and within twenty years, most Britons had access to passenger train service. This was an important event in the history of the country house because travelling times within Britain began to fall sharply. The introduction of the motor car in the 20th century would accelerate this trend. The country house served as a wonderful place for relaxing, hunting, and running the country with one's equals at the end of the week. So necessary was the country house deemed to be, that following the election of the first Labour Government in 1921, Lord Lee of Farham donated his country house Chequers to the nation for the use of a Prime Minister who might not possess one of his own. Chequers still fulfils that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood country houses, donated for sole use of high ranking ministers of the crown.

The decline of the country house

The decline of the English country house began during the Agricultural Depression of the 1870s and was dramatically accelerated by World War I. The huge staff required to maintain them had either left to fight and never return, departed to work in the munitions factories, or to fulfil the void left by the fighting men in other work places. On the cessation of war, of those who returned, many left the countryside for better paid jobs in towns. The final blow for many country houses came following World War II, when many houses which had been requisitioned by the government for use as barracks, hospitals and the like were returned to the owners in poor repair. Many of whom having lost their heirs, if not in the immediately preceding war, then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes from the accompanying estates had dropped; thus, the solution appeared to be to demolish the house and sell its stone, fireplaces, and panelling. And this is exactly what happened to many of Britain's finest houses.

The majority have fallen to the deprivations of modern life and become schools, hospitals, and prisons. Reduced from being 'Stately Homes', they are neither stately nor homes. Many, for example Cliveden and Hartwell House, have become luxury hotels, and many more, less luxurious hotels. These are among the fortunate few. In Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s thousands of country houses were demolished.

The country house in recent years

At some point in recent decades-perhaps after the exhibition, The Destruction of the Country House, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1974, or after the election of the Thatcher government in 1979 which led to reductions in taxes on the rich-the precipitous decline of the British country house, which many people, both sympathetic and hostile, had assumed would continue until there were very few survivors, none of them occupied as private residences, levelled off, and arguably it has now been reversed. The role of the country house has continued to evolve, however, and the link between country houses and agriculture, the activity that gave birth to them, grows less significant each year.
Today in Britain, country houses are in a variety of ownerships and serve a variety of functions. Many, such as Montacute House, West Wycombe Park, and Lyme Park, are owned by public bodies including the National Trust and are open to the public as museums as part of the "Stately home industry". Some, including Wilton House and Chatsworth House and many smaller houses such as Pencarrow in Cornwall and Rousham House in Oxfordshire, are still owned by the families who built them, retain their treasures and are open during summer months to the public. A large number are still owned by an individual and are not open to the public, but some of these have been separated from their agricultural estates, and few houses of the highest architectural or historic importance fall into this category. Compton Wynyates and Badminton House are exceptions. Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, one of the last of the architecturally important country houses never to have been opened to public viewing, was sold by Lord Hesketh in 2005.

According to "The Latest Country Houses" by John Martin Robinson (1984), between 1875 and 1975 1,116 country houses in the United Kingdom were destroyed, some quarter of the total. The worst periods were after the First World War and after the Second World War. The peak was in 1955, when 76 houses were destroyed.

However, a number of country houses have been built since 1945 (more than 200 according to Robinson's estimate, perhaps one third of the number lost in that time). Most have a functioning agricultural estate, varying in size from a few hundred acres to several thousands or more.
Few of these new houses have been distinguished either by great size or architectural merit. However, important examples include Eaton Hall, Cheshire (1971-1973 for the Duke of Westminster), Garrowby Hall, Yorkshire (1982 for the Earl of Halifax), and Sunninghill Park, Ascot (1988-1990 for the Duke of York).

Today owning a 'Country House' can be a mixed blessing. Usually listed as a building of historic interest, they can only be maintained under Government supervision, often interpreted by the owners as interference as it is usually the most costly method that the Government inspectors insist upon. This system does, however, ensure that all work is correctly and authentically done; the negative side is that many owners cannot afford the work, so a roof remains leaking for the sake of a cheap roof tile.
For all the hardships of owning a country house, many people still aspire to own one. Those that do often labour night and day to retain the houses they feel privileged to have inherited.

The English Country House

The English country house is generally accepted as a large house or mansion, once in the ownership of an individual who also most likely owned another great house in the West End of London. Hence one moved from one's town house to one's country house. Country houses and stately homes are sometimes confused-while a country house is always in the country, a stately home can also be in a town. Apsley House, built for the Duke of Wellington at the corner of Hyde Park ('No. 1, London' it was called), is one example. Other country houses such as Ascott in Buckinghamshire were deliberately designed not to be stately, and to harmonise with the landscape, while some of the great houses such as Kedleston Hall and Holkham Hall were built as "power houses" to impress and dominate the landscape, and were certainly intended to be "stately homes". Today many former "stately homes", while still country houses, are far from stately and most certainly not homes.
The country house was not just a weekend retreat for aristocrats, but often a full time residence for the minor gentry who were a central node in the "squirearchy" that ruled Britain until the Reform Act of 1832 (as documented in The Purefoy Letters, 1735-53 by L G Mitchell). Even some of the formal business of the shire was transacted in the Hall.

Evolution of the English country house

The country houses of England have evolved over the last 500 years. Before this time larger houses were more often than not fortified, reflecting the position of their owners as war lords or at least keepers of the peace. The Tudor period of stability in the country saw the first of the large unfortified mansions. Henry VIII's policy of the Dissolution of the Monasteries saw many former ecclesiastical properties turned over 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 often date from this period as private houses.

It was during the later half of the reign of Elizabeth I and 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 perhaps amongst the most well known. Hatfield House was one of the first houses in England to show the Italianate influences of the renaissance, which was eventually to see the end of the hinting-at-castle-architecture "turrets and towers" Gothic style. By the reign of Charles I, Inigo Jones and his form of Palladianism had changed the face of British domestic architecture completely. While there were later various Gothic Revival styles, the Palladian style in various forms, interrupted briefly by baroque, was to predominate until the late 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 tend to have been built by one architect at one particular time: Montacute House, Chatsworth House, and Blenheim Palace are examples. It is interesting that while the latter two are ducal palaces, Montacute, although built by a Master of the Rolls to Queen Elizabeth I, spent the next 400 years in the occupation of his descendents 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 the lesser-known English country houses, often owned by both gentry and aristocracy, are an evolution of one or more styles with facades and wings in various styles in a mixture of high architecture, often as interpreted by a local architect or surveyor and determined by practicality as much as the whims of architectural taste. An example might be 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 accommodate space for the owners twelve children. Canons Ashby, home to poet John Dryden's family, exemplifies this: a medieval farmhouse enlarged in the Tudor era around a courtyard, given grandiose plaster ceilings in the Stewart period and then given Georgian facades in the 18th century. The whole is a glorious mismatch of styles and fashions which seamlessly blend together-this could be called the true English country house. Wilton House, one of England's grandest houses, is in a remarkably similar vein. Except 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, a 150 years later Inigo Jones, and then Wyatt followed by Chambers. Each employed a different style of architecture, seemingly unaware of the design of the wing around the next corner. These varying "improvements", often criticised at the time, today are the qualities which make English country houses unique. No where else in the world would an elite class have allowed, or indeed pursued, such an indifference to style.

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 holding high political influence and power in national government or in the day-to-day running of their own localities in such offices as magistrates, or occasionally even clergy. These aristocrats continued, in diminishing degrees, to frequently hold the highest offices until well into the second half of the 20th century. Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Alec Douglas-Home were the last Prime Ministers to spring from this class. So necessary was the country house deemed to be that following the election of the first Labour Government in 1921, Viscount Lee of Fareham donated his country house Chequers to the nation for the use of a Prime Minister who might not possess one of his own. Chequers still fulfils that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood country houses, donated for sole use of high-ranking ministers of the crown.

Zenith of the English country house

During the 18th and 19th centuries to the highest echelons of British 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. However, there were many Squires who lived permanently on their country estates, seldom visiting London at all. The country house was the centre of its own world, providing employment to literally 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 these fortunate people was the indoor staff of the country house. Until the 20th century, unlike many of their contemporaries, 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 for lack of medicine or malnutrition, the long working hours were a small price to pay. The film Gosford Park, the reality series The Edwardian Country House and some episodes of the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs accurately recreated the stratified and repressed but secure atmosphere of the English country house just surviving into the age of the automobile.
Many aristocrats owned more than one country house and would visit each according to the season: Grouse shooting in Scotland, pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England. The Earl of Rosebery, for instance, had Dalmeny in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire and another near Epsom just for the racing season.

Decline

The slow decline of the English country house coincided with the rise of modern industry, which provided alternate means of employment for large numbers of people and contributed to upwardly mobile middle classes, but its ultimate demise began immediately following World War I. The huge staff required to maintain them had either left to fight and never return, departed to work in the munitions factories, or to fulfil the void left by the fighting men in other workplaces. Of those who returned with the cessation of 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 of whom having lost their heirs, if not in the immediately preceding war then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes from the accompanying estates had dropped. Thus, the solution appeared to be to demolish the house and sell its stone, fireplaces, and panelling. And this is exactly what happened to many of Britain's finest houses.

Today in Britain, country houses provide for a variety of needs. Many such as Montacute House, West Wycombe Park and Lyme Park are owned by public bodies, including the National Trust, and are open to the public as museums as part of the so-called "Stately home industry". Some, including Wilton House and Chatsworth House, and many smaller houses such as Pencarrow in Cornwall and Rousham House in Oxfordshire are still owned by the families who built them, retain their treasures and are open during summer months to the public. Fewer still are owned by the original families and are not open to the public: Compton Wynyates is one. Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, one of the last of the architecturally important country houses never to have been opened to public viewing, has just (2004) been offered for sale by Lord Hesketh

Today's English country house

The majority have fallen to the deprivations of modern life and become schools, hospitals, and prisons. Reduced from being "Stately Homes", they are neither stately nor homes. Many, for example, Cliveden and Hartwell House, have become luxury hotels and many more less luxurious hotels. These are among the fortunate few. In Britain during the 1950s and early 1960s, thousands of country houses were demolished.

Today owning a "Country House" can be a mixed blessing. Usually listed as a building of historic interest, they can only be maintained under Government supervision, often interpreted by the owners as interference as it is usually the most costly method that the Government inspectors insist upon. This system does, however, ensure that all work is correctly and authentically done. The negative side is that many owners cannot afford the work, so a roof remains leaking for the sake of a cheap roof tile.
For all the hardships of owning a country house, many people still aspire to own one. Those that do often labour night and day to retain the houses they feel privileged to have inherited.