Destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain

The destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain was a phenomenon brought about by a change in social conditions during which a large number of country houses of varying architectural merit were demolished. Collectively termed by several authors "the lost houses", the final chapter in the history of these often now-forgotten houses has been described as a cultural tragedy.

Two years before the beginning of World War I, on 4 May 1912, the British magazine Country Life
Country Life (magazine)
Country Life is a British weekly magazine, based in London at 110 Southwark Street, and owned by IPC Media, a Time Warner subsidiary.- Topics :The magazine covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people...

carried a seemingly unremarkable advertisement: the roofing balustrade and urns from the roof of Trentham Hall could be purchased for £200. One of Britain's great ducal country houses, Trentham Hall was demolished with little public comment or interest. It was its owner's property, to do with as he wished. There was no reason for public interest or concern; the same magazine had frequently published in-depth articles on new country houses being built, designed by fashionable architects such as Lutyens

Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

. As far as general opinion was concerned, England's great houses came and they went; so long as their numbers remained, continuing to provide local employment, the public were not largely concerned. The Country Life advertisement, however, was to prove a hint of things to come.

The British nobility

British nobility

-General History of British Nobility:The nobility of the four constituent home nations of the United Kingdom has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although in the present day even hereditary peers have no special rights, privileges or responsibilities, except for residual...

had been demolishing their country houses since the 15th century, when comfort replaced fortification as an essential need. For many, demolishing and rebuilding their country homes became a lifelong hobby, in particular during the 18th century when it became fashionable to take the Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

and return home with art treasures, supposedly brought from classical civilizations. During the 19th century, many houses were enlarged to accommodate the increasing armies of servants needed to create the famed country house lifestyle. Less than a century later, this often meant they were of an unmanageable size.

However, in the early 20th century, something changed: the demolition accelerated while rebuilding largely ceased. The demolitions were not confined to England, but spread throughout Britain. By the end of the century, even some of the "new" country houses by Lutyens had been demolished. There were a number of reasons: social, political, and most importantly, financial. In rural areas of Britain, the loss of the country houses and their estates was tantamount to a social revolution. Well into the 20th century, it was common for the local squire to provide large-scale employment, housing and patronage to the local school, church and a cottage hospital

Cottage Hospital

The original concept of a cottage hospital was a small rural hospital having up to 25 beds. One advantage of such a hospital in villages was the familiarity the local physician might have with their patient that may affect their treatment...

. The "big house" was the bedrock of rural society.

Since 1900, 1,200 country houses have been demolished in England. In Scotland, the figure is proportionally higher. There, 378 architecturally important country houses have been destroyed, 200 of these since 1945. Included in the destruction were works by Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

, including Balbardie House

Balbardie House

Balbardie House was a country house in West Lothian, Scotland, near to the town of Bathgate. Designed by Robert Adam, this great neoclassical mansion was demolished in two stages in 1954 and in 1975....

and the monumental Hamilton Palace

Hamilton Palace

Hamilton Palace was a large country house located north-east of Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The former seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, it was built in 1695 and subsequently much enlarged. The house was demolished in 1921 due to ground subsidence despite inadequate evidence for that...

. One firm, Charles Brand of Dundee, demolished at least 56 country houses in Scotland in the 20 years between 1945 and 1965. In England, it has been estimated that one in six of all country houses were demolished during the 20th century.

The number of demolitions was small prior to World War I but had become considerable by 1955, when one house was demolished every five days. Following World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Britain was pervaded by a feeling that socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

would be permanent. As early as 1944, the trustee

Trustee

Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...

s of Castle Howard

Castle Howard

Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, north of York. One of the grandest private residences in Britain, most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh...

, convinced there was no future for Britain's great houses, had begun selling the house's contents. Increasing taxation and a shortage of staff were already ensuring that the old way of life had ended. The wealth and status of the owner provided no protection to the building as even the more wealthy owners became keen to free themselves of not only the expense of a large house, but also the trappings of wealth and redundant privilege which the house represented. Thus, it was not just the smaller country houses of the gentry

Gentry

Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....

which were wiped from their – often purposefully built – landscapes, but also the huge ducal palaces. Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...

's Gothic Eaton Hall, owned by Britain's wealthiest peer was razed to the ground in 1963, to be replaced by a smaller modern building. Sixteen years earlier the Duke of Bedford

Duke of Bedford

thumb|right|240px|William Russell, 1st Duke of BedfordDuke of Bedford is a title that has been created five times in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1414 in favour of Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of France. He was made Earl of Kendal at the same time...

had reduced Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

to half its original size, destroying façades and interiors by both Henry Flitcroft

Henry Flitcroft

Henry Flitcroft was a major English architect in the second generation of Palladianism. He came from a simple background: his father was a labourer in the gardens at Hampton Court and he began as a joiner by trade. Working as a carpenter at Burlington House, he fell from a scaffold and broke his leg...

and Henry Holland

Henry Holland (architect)

Henry Holland was an architect to the English nobility. Born in Fulham, London, his father also Henry ran a building firm and he built several of Capability Brown's buildings, although Henry would have learnt a lot from his father about the practicalities of construction it was under Brown that he...

. The Duke of Devonshire

Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire

Andrew Robert Buxton Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire KG, MC, PC , styled Lord Andrew Cavendish until 1944 and Marquess of Hartington from 1944 to 1950, was a British Conservative politician...

saved Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall , in Derbyshire, is one of the most significant Elizabethan country houses in England. In common with its architect Robert Smythson's other works at both Longleat House and Wollaton Hall, Hardwick Hall is one of the earliest examples of the English interpretation of the Renaissance...

by surrendering it to the treasury in lieu of death duties, which were charged at the maximum rate of 80% of the total value of an estate, but this solution was rarely acceptable to the government. As late as 1975, the British Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

government refused to save Mentmore

Mentmore Towers

Mentmore Towers is a 19th century English country house in the village of Mentmore in Buckinghamshire. The house was designed by Joseph Paxton and his son-in-law, George Henry Stokes, in the revival Elizabethan and Jacobean style of the late 16th century called Jacobethan, for the banker and...

, thus causing the dispersal, and emigration, of one of the country's finest art collections.

During the 1960s, historians and public bodies had begun to realise the loss to the nation of this destruction. However, the process of change was long, and it was not until 1984 with the preservation of Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey is a Grade I listed country house near Ticknall, Derbyshire, England, in the care of the charitable National Trust.The site was an Augustinian priory from the 12th century until its dissolution by Henry VIII...

that it became obvious that opinion had changed. In the 21st century, the period of change seems cemented. A large public appeal has assured the preservation of Tyntesfield

Tyntesfield

Tyntesfield is a Victorian Gothic Revival estate near Wraxall, North Somerset, England, near Nailsea, seven miles from Bristol.The house was acquired by the National Trust in June 2002 after a fund raising campaign to prevent it being sold to private interests and ensure it be opened to the public...

in 2002, and in 2007, Dumfries House

Dumfries House

Dumfries House is a Palladian country house in Ayrshire, Scotland. It is located within a large estate, around 3 km west of Cumnock. It was built in the 1750s by John Adam and Robert Adam for William Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, and inherited in due course by the Marquesses of Bute, in...

and its collection were saved, after protracted appeals and debates. Today, demolition has ceased to be a realistic, or legal, option for listed buildings, and an historic house (particularly one with its contents intact) has become recognized as worthy of retention and preservation. However, many country houses are still at risk and their security, even as an entirety with their contents, is not guaranteed by any legislation.

Impoverished owners and a plethora of country houses

When Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

's novel Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...

, portraying life in the English country house, was published in 1945, its first few chapters portrayed a glimpse of a privileged, exclusive and enviable world, a world of beautiful country houses with magnificent contents, privileged occupants, a profusion of servants and great wealth. Yet, in its final chapters, Brideshead's author accurately documented a changing and fading world, a world in which the country house as a symbol of power, privilege and a natural order, was not to exist.
As early as June 1940, while Britain was embroiled the early days of World War II, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, confident of future victory, advised its readers that "a new order cannot be based on the preservation of privilege, whether the privilege be that of a county, a class, or an individual." Thus it was after the end of the war, as the government handed back the requisitioned, war-torn and frequently dilapidated mansions to their often demoralised and impoverished owners; it was during a period of not just mounting taxation, to pay for a costly war, but also a time when it seemed all too clear that the old order had passed. In this political climate, many felt it the only option to abandon their ancestral piles. Thus, following the cessation of hostilities, the trickle of demolitions which had begun in the earlier part of the century, now became a torrent of destruction.

Destroying buildings of national or potential national importance was not an act peculiar to the 20th century in Britain. The demolition in the late 1860s of Northumberland House

Northumberland House

Northumberland House was a large Jacobean mansion in London, which was so called because for most of its history it was the London residence of the Percy family, who were the Earls and later Dukes of Northumberland, and one of England's richest and most prominent aristocratic dynasties for many...

, London, a prime example of English Renaissance architecture, passed without significant comment. Town houses such as Northumberland House were highly visible displays of wealth and political power, so consequently more likely to be the victims of changing fashions.

The difference in the 20th century was that the acts of demolition were often acts of desperation and last resort; a demolished house could not be valued for probate duty. A vacant site was attractive to property developers, who would pay a premium for an empty site that could be rebuilt upon and filled with numerous small houses and bungalows, which would return a quick profit. This was especially true in the years immediately following World War II, when Britain was desperate to replace the thousands of homes destroyed. Thus, in many cases, the demolition of the ancestral seat, strongly entwined with the family's history and identity, followed the earlier loss of the family's London house.

A significant factor, which explained the seeming ease with which a British aristocrat could dispose of his ancestral seat, was the aristocratic habit of only marrying within the aristocracy and whenever possible to a sole heiress. This meant that by the 20th century, many owners of country houses often owned several country mansions. Thus it became a favoured option to select the most conveniently sited (whether for privacy or sporting reasons), easily managed, or of greatest sentimental value; fill it with the choicest art works from the other properties; and then demolish the less favoured. Thus, one solution not only solved any financial problems, but also removed an unwanted burden.

The vast majority of the houses demolished were of less architectural importance than the great Baroque

Baroque architecture

Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...

, Palladian

Palladian architecture

Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...

and Neoclassical

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

mansions by the notable architects. These smaller, but often aesthetically pleasing houses belonged to the gentry

Gentry

Gentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....

rather the aristocracy; in these cases the owners, little more than gentlemen farmers, often razed the ancestral home to save costs and thankfully moved into a smaller but more comfortable farmhouse or purpose-built new house on the estate.

Occasionally an aristocrat of the first rank did find himself in dire financial troubles. The severely impoverished Duke Of Marlborough

Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough

Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough KG, PC , styled Earl of Sunderland until 1883 and Marquess of Blandford between 1883 and 1892, was a British soldier and Conservative politician...

saved Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace is a monumental country house situated in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, residence of the dukes of Marlborough. It is the only non-royal non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace. The palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between...

by marrying an heiress

Consuelo Vanderbilt

Consuelo Balsan , was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family...

, tempted from the USA by the lure of an old title in return for vast riches. Not all were so fortunate or seemingly eligible. When 2nd Duke of Buckingham found himself bankrupt in 1848, he sold the contents of Stowe House

Stowe House

Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house located in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school. The gardens , a significant example of the English Landscape Garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust...

, one of Britain's grandest houses. It proved to be a temporary solution; his heirs, the 3rd and final Duke of Buckingham

Richard Temple-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos GCSI, PC , styled Earl Temple until 1839 and Marquess of Chandos from 1839 to 1861, was a British soldier, politician and administrator of the 19th century...

and his heirs, the Earls Temple

Earl Temple of Stowe

Earl Temple of Stowe, in the County of Buckingham, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1822 for the 2nd Marquess of Buckingham. He was created Marquess of Chandos and Duke of Buckingham and Chandos at the same time...

, inherited huge financial problems until finally in 1922 anything left that was moveable, both internal and external, was auctioned off and the house sold, narrowly escaping demolition. It was saved by being transformed into a school. Less fortunate was Clumber Park

Clumber Park

Clumber Park is a country park in the Dukeries near Worksop in Nottinghamshire, England. It was the seat of the Pelham-Clintons, Dukes of Newcastle.It is owned by the National Trust and open to the public.-History:...

, the principal home of the Dukes of Newcastle. Selling the Hope diamond

Hope Diamond

The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...

and other properties failed to solve the family problems, leaving no alternative but demolition of the huge, expensive-to-maintain house, which was razed to the ground in 1938, leaving the Duke without a ducal seat. Plans to rebuild a smaller house on the site were never executed. Other high ranking members of the peerage were also forced to off-load minor estates and seats; the Duke of Northumberland retained Alnwick Castle

Alnwick Castle

Alnwick Castle is a castle and stately home in the town of the same name in the English county of Northumberland. It is the residence of the Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest, and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a Grade I listed building.-History:Alnwick...

, but sold Stanwick Park

Stanwick Park

Stanwick Park was a palladian country house at Stanwick St John in Yorkshire. It was re-built by the 1st Duke of Northumberland, a great patron of the arts, c1739-1740, mostly to his own designs. The Duke's principal seat was Alnwick Castle thus Stanwick Park was always a secondary residence...

to be demolished, leaving him with four other country seats remaining. Likewise the Duke of Bedford kept Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

, considerably reduced in size, after World War II, while selling other family estates and houses. Whatever the personal choices and reasons for the sales and demolitions, the underlying and unifying factor was almost always financial. The root of the problem began long before the 20th century with the gradual introduction and increase of taxes on income and further tax on inherited wealth, death duties.

Direct causes

Before the 19th century, the British upper classes enjoyed a life relatively free from taxation. Staff were plentiful and cheap, and estates not only provided a generous income from tenanted land but also political power. During the 19th century this began to change, until by the mid 20th century they had no power and were suffering heavy taxation. The staff had either been killed in two world wars or forsaken a life of servitude for better wages elsewhere. Thus the owners of large country houses dependent on staff and a large income began by necessity to dispose of their costly non-self sustaining material assets. Large houses had become redundant white elephant

White elephant

A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth...

s to be abandoned or demolished. It seemed that in particular regard to the country houses no one was prepared to save them.

There are several reasons which had brought about this situation – most significantly in the early 20th century there was no firmly upheld legislation to protect what is now considered to be the nation's heritage. Additionally, public opinion did not have the sentiment and interest in national heritage that is evident in Britain today. When the loss of Britain's architectural heritage reached its height at the rate of one house every five days in 1955, few were particularly interested or bothered. In the immediate aftermath of World War II

World War II

, to the British public still suffering from the deprivations of food rationing and restriction on building work the destruction of these great redundant houses was of little interest. From 1914 onwards there had been a huge exodus away from a life in domestic service; having experienced the less restricted and better paid life away from the great estates, few were anxious to return – this in itself was a further reason that life in the English country house was becoming near impossible to all but the very rich.
Another consideration was education. Before the late 1950s and the advent of the stately home

Stately home

A stately home is a "great country house". It is thus a palatial great house or in some cases an updated castle, located in the British Isles, mostly built between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property...

business, very few working class people had seen the upstairs of these great houses; those that had were there only to only to clean and serve, with an obligation to keep their eyes down, rather than uplift them and be educated. Thus ignorance of the Nation's heritage was a large contributory factor to the indifference that met the destruction.

There were, however, reasons other than public indifference. Successive legislation involving national heritage, often formulated by the aristocracy themselves, had omitted any reference to private houses. The main reasons that so many British country houses were destroyed during the second half of the 20th century are politics and social conditions. During the Second World War many large houses were requisitioned, and subsequently for the duration of the war were used for the billeting of military personnel, government operations, hospitals, schools and a myriad of other uses far removed from the purpose for which they were designed. At the end of the war when handed back to the owners, many were in a poor or ruinous state of repair. During the next two decades, restrictions were applied to building works as Britain was rebuilt, priority being given to replacing what had been lost during the war rather than the oversized home of an elite family. In addition, death duties were raised to all-time highs by the new Labour

Labour Party (UK)

Government that swept into power in 1945; this hit Britain's aristocracy hard. These factors, coupled with a decrease in people available or willing to work as servants, left the owners of country houses facing major problems of how to manage their estates. The most obvious solution was to off-load the cash-eating family mansion. Many were offered for sale as suitable for institutional use; those not readily purchased were speedily demolished. In the years immediately after the war, the law was powerless — even had it wished to — to stop the demolition of a private house no matter how architecturally important.

Loss of income from the estate

Before the 1870s, these estates often encompassed several thousand acres, generally consisting of a home farm, kitchen gardens (utilised to supply the mansion with meat, milk, fruit and vegetables), and several farms let to tenants. While such estates were sufficiently profitable to maintain the mansion and provide a partial—if not complete—income, the agricultural depression of the 1870s changed the viability of estates in general. Previously, such holdings yielded at least enough to fund loans on the large debts and mortgages usually undertaken to fund a lavish lifestyle, often spent both in the country estate and in large houses in London.

By 1880, the agricultural depression

Long Depression

The Long Depression was a worldwide economic crisis, felt most heavily in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fueled by the Second Industrial Revolution in the decade following the American Civil War. At the time, the episode was labeled the Great...

had led some holders into financial shortfalls as they tried to balance maintenance of their estate with the income it provided. Some relied on funds from secondary sources such as banking and trade while others, like the severely impoverished Duke Of Marlborough

Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough

, sought American heiresses.

Loss of political power

The country houses have been described as "power houses", from which their owners controlled not only the vast surrounding estates, but also, through political influence, the people living in the locality. Political elections held in public before 1872 gave suffrage

Suffrage

Suffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...

to only a limited section of the community, many of whom were the landowner's friends, tradesmen with whom he dealt, senior employees or tenants. The local landowner often not only owned an elector's house, but was also his employer, and it was not prudent for the voter to be seen publicly voting against his local candidate.

The Third Reform Act of 1885 widened the number of males eligible to vote to 60% of the population. Males paying an annual rental of £10, or holding land valued at £10 or over, were now eligible to vote. The other factor was the reorganization of constituency boundaries, and a candidate who for years had been returned unopposed suddenly found part of his electorate was from an area outside of his influence. Thus the national power of the landed aristocrats and gentry was slowly diminished. The ruling class

Ruling class

The term ruling class refers to the social class of a given society that decides upon and sets that society's political policy - assuming there is one such particular class in the given society....

was slowly ceasing to rule. In 1888 the creation of local elected authorities eroded their immediate local power too. The final blow, the reform of the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

in 1911, proved to be the beginning of the end for the country house lifestyle which had been enjoyed in a similar way for generations of the upper classes.

As land prices and incomes continued to fall, the great London palaces were the first casualties; the peer no longer needed to use his London house to maintain a high prestige presence in the capital. Its site was often more valuable empty than with the anachronistic palace in situ; selling them for redevelopment was the obvious first choice to raise some fast cash. The second choice was to sell part of the landed estate, especially if had been purchased in order to expand political territory. In fact, the buying of land in earlier times, before the reforms of 1885, to expand political territory had had a detrimental effect on country houses too. Often when a second estate was purchased to expand another, the purchased estate also had a country house. If the land (and its subsequent local influence) was the only requirement, its house would then be let or neglected, often both. This was certainly the case at Tong Castle (see below) and many other houses. A large unwanted country house unsupported by land quickly became a liability.

Loss of wealth through taxation

Income tax:

Income tax

Income tax

An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...

was first introduced in Great Britain in 1799 as a means of subsidising the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. While not imposed in Ireland, the rate of 10% on the total income, with reductions only possible in incomes below £200, immediately hit the better off. The tax was repealed for a brief period in 1802 during a cessation in hostilities with the French, but its reintroduction in 1803 set the pattern for all future taxation in Britain. While the tax was again repealed following the victory at Waterloo

Battle of Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...

, the advantages of such taxation were now obvious. In 1841 following the election victory of Sir Robert Peel, the exchequer was so depleted that the tax made a surprise return on incomes above £150 while still known as a "temporary tax". It was never again to be repealed. Throughout the 19th century, tax thresholds remained high, permitting the wealthy to live comfortably while paying minimal tax; until in 1907, Herbert Asquith introduced 'differentiation', a tax designed to be more punitive to those with investments rather than an earned income, which directly hit the aristocracy and gentry. Two years later, Lloyd George in his People’s Budget of 1909 announced plans for a super-tax for the rich, but the bill introducing the tax was defeated in the House of Lords. Any respite this defeat gave the owners of large country houses, many of them members of the House of Lords, was to be brief and ultimately self-defeating. The bill's defeat led to the 1911 Parliament Act

Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949

The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 are two Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which form part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1949 provides that that Act and the Parliament Act 1911 are to be construed as one.The Parliament Act 1911 The...

which removed the Lords' power of veto.
Death duties:
Death duties are the taxes most commonly associated with the decline of the British country house. They are not, in fact, a phenomenon peculiar to the 20th century, as they had first been introduced in 1796. "Legacy Duty" was a tax payable on money bequeathed from a personal estate. Next of kin inheriting were exempt from payment, but anyone other than wives and children of the deceased had to pay on an increasing scale depending on the distance of the relationship from the deceased. These taxes gradually increased not only the percentage of the estate that had to be paid, but also to include closer heirs liable to payment. By 1815, the tax was payable by all except the spouse of the deceased.

In 1853, a new tax was introduced, "Succession duty

Succession duty

Succession duty, in the English fiscal system, "a tax placed on the gratuitous acquisition of property which passes on the death of any person, by means of a transfer from one person to another person ." In order properly to understand the present state of the English law it is necessary to...

." This not only resulted in tax being payable on all forms of inheritance, but also removed several loopholes to avoid paying inheritance taxes. In 1881 "Probate Duty" became payable on all personal property bequeathed at death. The wording personal property meant that for the first time not only the house and its estate were taxed but also the contents of the house including jewellery – these were often of greater value than the estate itself. By 1884 Estate Duty taxed property of any manner bequeathed at death, but even when the Liberal government in 1894 reformed and tidied the complicated system at 8% on properties valued at over one million pounds, they were not punitive to a social class able to live comfortably off inherited wealth far below that sum. Death duties, however, slowly increased and became a serious problem for the country estate throughout the first half of the 20th century, reaching a zenith when assisting in the funding of World War II. This proved to be the deciding factor for many families when in 1940 death duties were raised from 50% to 65%, and following the cessation of hostilities they were twice raised further between 1946 and 1949. Attempts by some families to avoid paying death duties backfired. Some estate owners had given their properties to their heirs in advance of their own deaths to escape duties; when subsequently the heir was killed fighting, death duties became immediately payable and the estate would then pass back to the elderly former owner, who in turn would die before the first death duties had been paid. In this way some estates were financially exhausted.

1882 and 1900 Ancient Monument and Amendment Acts

The Ancient Monument and Amendment Acts of 1882 was the first serious attempt in Britain to catalogue and preserve ancient British monuments. While the Acts failed to protect any country houses, a 1900 Act provided one important factor which saved many monuments of national importance. The 1900 Act made provision for owners of ancient monuments (on list of the 1882 catalogue) to enter into agreement with civil authorities whereby the property was placed under public guardianship. While these agreements did not divest the owner of the title to the property, they imposed on the civil authority an obligation to maintain and preserve for the nation. So while the Acts may have been in favour of the owner, they set a precedent for the later preservation of structures of national importance. The main problem with the Acts was that, out of all Britain's great buildings, they only found 26 monuments in England, 22 in Scotland, 18 in Ireland and 3 in Wales worthy of preservation; all of which were prehistoric.

While neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

monuments were included, the Acts specifically excluded inhabited residences. The prevailing philosophy was that an "Englishman's home is his castle" and the aristocratic ruling class of Britain inhabiting their homes and castles were certainly not going to be regulated by some lowly civil servants. This view was exemplified in 1911 when the immensely wealthy Duke of Sutherland

Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland

Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 4th Duke of Sutherland , styled Lord Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower until 1858, Earl Gower between 1858 and 1861 and Marquess of Stafford between 1861 and 1892, was a British peer and politician.-Background:Sutherland was the son of George...

acting on a whim wished to dispose of Trentham Hall, a vast Italianate palace in Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

. After failing to offload the house onto a local authority, he decided to demolish it. The small, but vocal, public resistance to this plan caused the Duke of Rutland

Duke of Rutland

Earl of Rutland and Duke of Rutland are titles in the peerage of England, derived from Rutland, a county in the East Midlands of England. The Earl of Rutland was elevated to the status of Duke in 1703 and the titles were merged....

to write an irate letter to The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

accusing the objectors of "impudence" and going on to say "....fancy my not being allowed to make a necessary alteration to Haddon
Haddon Hall
Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye at Bakewell, Derbyshire, one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, occupied by Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its]...

without first obtaining the leave of some inspector". There was an irony in the Duke of Rutland's words, as this same duke was responsible for resurrecting one of his own country houses, Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall is an English country house on the River Wye at Bakewell, Derbyshire, one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland, occupied by Lord Edward Manners and his family. In form a medieval manor house, it has been described as "the most complete and most interesting house of [its]...

, from ruin. Thus, despite money being no problem for its owner, Trentham Hall was completely obliterated from its park, which the Duke retained and then opened to the public. Thus it was that country houses were left unprotected by any compulsory legislation.

The 1913 Ancient Monuments Consolidation Act was the first Act which had the aim of deliberately preserving ancient monuments built since prehistoric times. The act clearly defined a monument as "Any structure or erection other than one in ecclesiastical use." Furthermore, the Act compelled the owner of any monument on the list to notify the newly formed Ancient Monuments Board of any proposed alterations, including demolition. The Board then had the authority, if minded, to recommend that parliament place a preservation order on a building, regardless of the owner's wishes, and thus protect it.

Like its predecessors, the 1913 Act deliberately omitted inclusion of inhabited buildings, whether they were castles or palaces. This was ironic as the catalyst for the 1913 Act had been the threat to Tattersall Castle

Tattershall Castle (Lincolnshire)

Tattershall Castle is a castle in Tattershall, Lincolnshire, England, north east of Sleaford, and in the care of the National Trust.-History:...

, Lincolnshire. An American millionaire wished to purchase the uninhabited castle, and ship it to the USA in its entirety. To frustrate the proposal, the castle had been purchased and restored by Lord Curzon

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC , known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who was Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary...

and thus the export of Lord Cromwell

Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell

Ralph de Cromwell, 3rd Baron Cromwell was an English politician and diplomat. A Privy Councillor from 1422, he served as Treasurer of England and twice as Chamberlain of the Household during the reign of Henry VI....

's castle was prevented. The 1913 Act was an important step in highlighting the risk to the nation's many historic buildings. The Act also went further than it predecessors by decreeing that the public should have access to the monuments preserved at its expense.

While the catalogue of buildings worthy of preservation was to expand, it remained restrictive, and failed to prevent many of the early demolitions, including, in 1925, the export to the USA of the near ruinous Agecroft Hall

Agecroft Hall

Agecroft Hall is a Tudor-style estate currently on the James River in Virginia, United States, though originally built in Pendlebury, Lancashire, England in the late 15th century. It is now operated as a museum. It was the home of Lancashire's Langley and Dauntesey families before falling into...

. This fine half timbered example of Tudor domestic architecture, was shipped, complete with its timbers, wattle and daub, across the Atlantic.

In 1931, the Ancient Monuments Consolidation Act was amended to restrict development in an area surrounding an ancient monument. The scope of buildings included was also widened to include "any building, structure or other work, above or below the surface". However, the Act still excluded inhabited buildings. Had it included them, much that was destroyed before World War II could have been saved.

1932 Town and Country Planning Act

The 1932 Town and Country Planning Act was chiefly concerned with development and new planning regulations. However, amongst the small print was Clause 17, which permitted a town council to prevent the demolition of any property within its jurisdiction. This unpopular clause clearly intruded on the "Englishman's home is his castle" philosophy, and provoked similar aristocratic fury to that seen in 1911. The Marquess of Hartington

Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire

Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...

thundered: "Clause 17 is an abominably bad clause, these buildings have been preserved to us not by Acts of Parliament, but by the loving care of generations of free Englishmen who...did not know what a District Council was". The Marquess, so against enforced preservation, was in fact a member of the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England

The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England was the body formerly responsible for documenting the records of English historical monuments. It was merged with English Heritage on 1 April 1999....

, in the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

, the very body which oversaw the implementation of the acts intended to enforce preservation. Thus, when the Act was finally passed after approval from the House of Lords, the final paragraph excluded from the act "any building included in a list of monuments published by the Commissioners of Works" and more tellingly did not "affect any powers of the Commissioners of Works." Ironically, eighteen years later, on the untimely death of the marquess, by then Duke of Devonshire, his son was forced to surrender to the state, in lieu of death duties, one of England's most historic country houses, Hardwick Hall

Hardwick Hall

, now owned by the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

. The Devonshire's London house, Devonshire House

Devonshire House

Devonshire House in Piccadilly was the London residence of the Dukes of Devonshire in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was built for William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire in the Palladian style, to designs by William Kent...

had been demolished in 1920, and its site redeveloped.

1944 Town and Country Planning Act

The 1944 Town and Country Planning Act, with the end of World War II in sight, was chiefly concerned with the redevelopment of bomb sites, but contained one crucial clause which concerned historic buildings: it charged local authorities to draw up a list of all buildings of architectural importance in their area, and, most significantly, for the first time the catalogue was to include inhabited private residences. This legislation created the foundations for what are today known as listed buildings. Under the scheme, an interesting or historic building was graded according to its value to the national heritage:

Grade I (buildings of exceptional interest)
Grade II* (buildings of more than special interest)
Grade II (buildings of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them)

The Act criminalised unauthorised alterations, or demolitions, to a listed building, so in theory at least, all historic buildings were now safe from unauthorised demolition. The truth was that the Act was rarely enforced, only a few buildings were listed, over half of them by just one council, Winchelsea

Winchelsea

Winchelsea is a small village in East Sussex, England, located between the High Weald and the Romney Marsh, approximately two miles south west of Rye and seven miles north east of Hastings...

. Elsewhere, the fines levied on those failing to comply with the Act were far less than the profit from redeveloping a site. Little changed. In 1946, in what has been described as "an act of sheer class-war vindictiveness", Britain's Labour Government insisted on the destruction, by open cast mining, of the park and formal gardens of Wentworth Woodhouse

Wentworth Woodhouse

Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house near the village of Wentworth, in the vicinity of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. "One of the great Whig political palaces", its East Front, long, is the longest country house façade in Europe. The house includes 365 rooms and covers an...

, Britain's largest country house, the Minister of Fuel and Power, Manny Shinwell

Manny Shinwell

Emanuel "Manny" Shinwell, Baron Shinwell CH, PC , familiarly known as Manny, was a British trade union official, Labour politician and one of the leading figures of Red Clydeside....

, insisting, as 300 year old oaks were uprooted, that "the park be mined right up to the mansion's door." Meanwhile plans by the socialist government to wrest the house from its owner, the Earl Fitzwilliam, and convert the architecturally important house for "homeless industrial families" were only abandoned at the eleventh hour when Earl Fitzwilliam, through the auspices of his socialist sister

Lady Mabel Fitzwilliam

Lady Mabel Florence Harriet Wentworth-Fitzwilliam was an English socialist politician, later known as Lady Mabel Smith....

, agreed to its conversion to a college—a lesser fate. This was the political climate in which many families abandoned the houses their families had owned for generations.

1947 Town and Country Planning Act

The apathy towards the nation's heritage continued after the passing of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947

Town and Country Planning Act 1947

The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom passed by the post-war Labour government...

, even though this was the most comprehensive law pertaining to planning legislation in England. The 1947 Act went further than its predecessors in dealing with historic buildings, as it required owners of property to notify their local authority of intended alterations, and more significantly, demolitions. This caught any property which may have escaped official notice previously. Theoretically, it gave the local authority the opportunity to impose a preservation order on the property and prevent demolition. Under this law the Duke of Bedford was fined for demolishing half of Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

without notification, although it is inconceivable that the Duke would have been able to demolish half of the huge house (much of it visible from a public highway) without attracting public attention until the demolition was complete.
Indifference on the part of local authorities and the public resulted in poor enforcement of the Act, and revealed the true root of the problem. When in 1956 Lord Lansdowne

George Petty-Fitzmaurice, 8th Marquess of Lansdowne

George John Charles Mercer Nairne Petty-Fitzmaurice, 8th Marquess of Lansdowne DL , known as George Petty-Fitzmaurice until 1944, was a British peer and Conservative politician.-Background:...

notified the "Ministry of Housing and Government" of his intention to demolish the greater part and corps de logis

Corps de logis

Corps de logis is the architectural term which refers to the principal block of a large, usually classical, mansion or palace. It contains the principal rooms, state apartments and an entry. The grandest and finest rooms are often on the first floor above the ground level: this floor is the...

of Bowood designed by Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

, no preservation society or historical group raised an objection (with the exception of James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne was an English writer and expert on country houses. He was an architectural historian, novelist, and a biographer. He is also remembered as a diarist.-Biography:...

, the noted biographer and historian of the English country house) and the demolition went ahead unchallenged. The mid-1950s, which should have been regulated by the above Acts, was the era in which most houses were legitimately destroyed, at an estimated rate of one every five days.

1968 Town and Country Planning Act

The demolition finally began to noticeably slow following the passing of the 1968 Town and County Planning Act. This Act compelled owners to seek and wait for permission to demolish a building, rather than merely notify the local authority. It also gave the local authority powers to immediately protect the building by issuing a "Building Preservation Notice", which in effect gave the structure listed building status. Thus it was that 1968 became the last year that demolition ran into double figures.

The final and perhaps most important factor which secured Britain's heritage was a change in public opinion. This was in part brought about by the Destruction of the Country House exhibition

Destruction of the Country House exhibition

The Destruction of the Country House 1875-1975 was an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1974, curated byV&A Director Roy Strong with John Harris and Marcus Binney .The exhibition included a "Hall of Destruction", decorated with falling columns and illustrations of some...

held at London's Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

in 1974. The response to this highly publicised exhibition was very positive; for the first time the public, rather than a few intellectual bodies, became aware that country houses were an important part of the national heritage and worthy of preservation. Today, over 370,000 buildings are listed, which includes all buildings erected before 1700 and most constructed before 1840. After that date a building has to be of architectural or historical importance to be protected.

Re-evaluation of the country house

The unprecedented demolitions of the 20th century did not see the complete demise of the country house, but rather a consolidation of those that were most favoured by their owners. Many were the subject of vast alteration and rearrangements of the interior, to facilitate a new way of life less dependant on vast armies of servants. Large service wings, often 19th century additions, were frequently demolished, as at Sandringham House

Sandringham House

Sandringham House is a country house on of land near the village of Sandringham in Norfolk, England. The house is privately owned by the British Royal Family and is located on the royal Sandringham Estate, which lies within the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.-History and current...

, or allowed to crumble as was the case at West Wycombe Park

West Wycombe Park

West Wycombe Park is a country house near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, built between 1740 and 1800. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th century libertine and dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 2nd Baronet. The house is a long rectangle with four façades that...

where the service wing was unreliably attributed to Robert Adam.

From the turn of the 20th century, interior woodwork, including complete panelled rooms and staircases and fittings such as chimneypieces secured an avid market among rich Americans. In rare cases, complete houses were disassembled, stone by stone, and reassembled in the US; an example is Agecroft Hall

Agecroft Hall

, a Lancashire house sold at auction in 1925, dismantled, crated and shipped across the Atlantic, and then reassembled in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

. The Carolean staircase from Cassiobury Park

Cassiobury Park

Cassiobury Park is the principal public open space in Watford, Hertfordshire, in England. It comprises over and extends from the A412 Rickmansworth Road in the east to the Grand Union Canal in the west....

has come to rest in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

as have elements to reassemble "period rooms", including the Rococo stuccoed plasterwork from the Dining Room of the Dashwood seat, Kirtlington Park, the tapestry room from Croome Court and the dining room by Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Robert Adam was a Scottish neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him...

from Lansdowne House

Lansdowne House

Lansdowne House is a building to the southwest of Berkeley Square in central London, England. It was designed by Robert Adam as a private house and for most of its time as a residence it belonged to the Petty family, Marquesses of Lansdowne. Since 1935, it has been the home of the Lansdowne Club....

, London, where the incidence of lost great residences is higher, naturally enough, than anywhere in the countryside.

The stately home business

Many of Britain's greatest houses have frequently been open to the paying public. Well-heeled visitors could knock on the front door and a senior servant would give a guided tour for a small renumeration. In the early 19th century, Jane Austen records such a trip in chapter 43 of Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle are given a guided tour of Mr Darcy's Pemberley by the housekeeper. Later in the century, on days when Belvoir Castle

Belvoir Castle

Belvoir Castle is a stately home in the English county of Leicestershire, overlooking the Vale of Belvoir . It is a Grade I listed building....

was open to the public, the 7th Duke of Rutland was reported by his granddaughter, the socialite Lady Diana, to assume a "look of pleasure and welcome." Here and elsewhere, however, that welcome did not extend to a tea room and certainly not to chimpanzees swinging through the shrubbery; that was all to come over 50 years later. At this time, admittance was granted in patrician fashion with all proceeds usually donated to a local charity.

In 1898, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

was founded as a charitable society principally for the preservation of landscapes of outstanding beauty or interest. During its infancy its focus gradually changed to include historic buildings. This was due in part to the millionaire philanthropist, Ernest Cook. A man dedicated to preservation of country houses, he had purchased Montacute House

Montacute House

Montacute House is a late Elizabethan country house situated in the South Somerset village of Montacute. This house is a textbook example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical; this has resulted in Montacute being regarded as...

in 1931, one of England's most important Elizabethan mansions, which had been offered for sale with a "scrap value of £5,882". Cook presented the house to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was founded by William Morris, Philip Webb and J.J.Stevenson, and other notable members of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, in 1877, to oppose what they saw as the insensitive renovation of ancient buildings then occurring in Victorian...

, which promptly passed it to the National Trust. It was one of the Trust's first great houses, and over the next 70 years was to be followed by over three hundred further nationally important houses which the Trust would administer and open to the public.
Following World War II, many owners of vast houses faced a dilemma; often they had already disposed of minor country residences to preserve the principal seat, and now that seat too was in jeopardy. Many considered passing their houses to the National Trust and subsequently received a visit from the Trust's representative, the diarist James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne

James Lees-Milne was an English writer and expert on country houses. He was an architectural historian, novelist, and a biographer. He is also remembered as a diarist.-Biography:...

. He often had to choose between accepting a house and saving it, or declining it and sentencing it to dereliction and demolition. In his published memoirs he writes of the confusion many owners felt in what had become a world they no longer understood. Some were grateful to the Trust, some resented it, and others were openly hostile.

To some owners, the principal house was more than just a dwelling; built when the family was at the height of its power, wealth and glory, it represented the family's history and status. It was an integral part of the family's being and needed to be preserved and retained by the family, even if this meant "entering trade", a prospect which would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

This can be exemplified by the business ventures executed by the Marquess of Bath

Marquess of Bath

Marquess of Bath is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1789 for Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth. The Thynne family descends from the soldier and courtier Sir John Thynne , who constructed Longleat House between 1567 and 1579...

at Longleat House. Reacquiring occupation of this enormous 16th-century mansion, in a state of poor repair, following requisition during World War II, the marquess was faced with death duties of £700,000. The marquess threw the house open to the paying public and kept the proceeds himself to fund the mansion. In 1966, to keep attendance numbers high, the peer went a step further and introduced lions to the park, thus creating Britain's' first safari park

Longleat Safari Park

Longleat Safari Park, in Wiltshire, England was opened in 1966 and was the first drive-through safari park outside Africa. The park is situated in the grounds of Longleat House, an English stately home that attracts tourists and is the current home of the 7th Marquess of Bath...

. After the initial opening of Longleat, the Dukes of Marlborough, Devonshire and Bedford threw open the doors of Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace

, Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House

Chatsworth House is a stately home in North Derbyshire, England, northeast of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield . It is the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and has been home to his family, the Cavendish family, since Bess of Hardwick settled at Chatsworth in 1549.Standing on the east bank of the...

and what remained of Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey

Woburn Abbey , near Woburn, Bedfordshire, England, is a country house, the seat of the Duke of Bedford and the location of the Woburn Safari Park.- Pre-20th century :...

. With the example and precedent of "trade" set by those at the top of the aristocratic pyramid, within a few years hundreds of Britain's country houses were open two or three days a week to a public eager to see the rooms which a few years earlier their ancestors had cleaned. Others, such as Knebworth House

Concerts at Knebworth House

The grounds of Knebworth House near the village of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England has become a major venue for open air rock and pop concerts since 1974 when The Allman Brothers Band attracted 60,000 at the first large concert held at the venue....

, became venues for pop and rock festivals

Rock festival

A rock festival, or a rock fest, is a large-scale rock music concert, featuring multiple acts.The first rock festivals were put on in the late 1960s and were important socio-cultural milestones. In the 1980s a minor resurgence of festivals occurred with charity as the goal.Today, they are often...

. By 1992, 600 "stately homes" were visited annually by 50 million members of the paying public. Stately homes were now big business, but opening a few rooms and novelties in the park alone was not going to fund the houses beyond the final decades of the twentieth century. Even during the stately home boom years of the 1960s and 1970s historic houses were still having their contents sold, being demolished or, if permission to demolish was not forthcoming, being left to dereliction and ruin.

By the early 1970s the demolition of great country houses began to slow. However, while the disappearance of the houses eased, the dispersal of the contents of many of these near redundant museums of social history did not, a fact highlighted in the early 1970s by the dispersal sale of Mentmore

Mentmore Towers

. The high profile campaign of Marcus Binney

Marcus Binney

Marcus Binney, CBE is a British architectural historian and author. He is best known for his conservation work regarding Britain's heritage.-Early and family life:...

, eminent architectural historian and President of SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage

SAVE Britain's Heritage has been described as the most influential conservation group to have been established since William Morris founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. It was created in 1975 - European Architectural Heritage Year - by a group of journalists,...

, failed to save the mid-Victorian mansion; and the subsequent departure from Britain of many important works of art from Mentmore caused public opinion to slowly change. The house had in fact been offered to the nation by its owners in lieu of death duties, but the Labour

Labour Party (UK)

Government of James Callaghan

James Callaghan

Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC , was a British Labour politician, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980...

with a general election

General election

In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

in sight did not wish to be seen saving the ancestral home of an hereditary nobleman and thus rejected the offer. However, that same year the destruction finally came to a near standstill. This was not just due to stricter application of legislation, but also in part due to the high profile Destruction of the Country House exhibition

Destruction of the Country House exhibition

held in 1974 by the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

. However, the damage to the nation's heritage had been done.

The future

By 1984 public and Government opinion had so changed that a campaign to save the semi-derelict, but untouched by time, Calke Abbey

Calke Abbey

was successful. Writing in 1992 in the Daily Telegraph, 47 years after his father wrote his melancholy novel prophesying the decline of county house life, Auberon Waugh

Auberon Waugh

Auberon Alexander Waugh was a British author and journalist, son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was known to his family and friends as Bron Waugh.-Life and career:...

felt confident enough of the survival of the country house as a domestic residence to declare: "I would be surprised if there is any greater happiness than that provided by a game of croquet played on an English lawn through a summer's afternoon, after a good luncheon and with the prospect of a good dinner ahead. There are not that many things which the English do better than anyone else. It is encouraging to think we are still holding on to a few of them."

Waugh was writing of the survival of Brympton d'Evercy

Brympton d'Evercy

Brympton d'Evercy is a manor house near Yeovil in the county of Somerset, England. It has been described as the most beautiful house in England, in a country of architecturally pleasing country houses; whatever the truth of that statement, in 1927 the British magazine Country Life published a set...

which in the preceding 50 years had been transformed from an ancestral home and hub of an estate, into a school. Then, following a brief period while its owners tried to save it as a stately home open to the public, it had been sold and purchased for use as a private residence once again, albeit also doubling as a wedding venue and sometimes filmset; both common and lucrative sources of country house income in the 21st century. The 21st century has also seen many country houses transformed into places of seemingly antiquated luxury, in order to meet the demand for a new British phenomenon, the country house hotel. This has been the fate of Luton Hoo

Luton Hoo

Luton Hoo straddles the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire borders between the towns of Harpenden and Luton. The unusual name "Hoo" is a Saxon word meaning the spur of a hill, and is more commonly associated with East Anglia.- Early History :...

and Hartwell House. Others remain private houses, but with the principal rooms being hired out as film sets and venues for events and weddings.

Occasionally, country houses have been saved for purely public appreciation as a result of public appeals and campaigns, such as Tyntesfield

Tyntesfield

, a Victorian Gothic Revival mansion in North Somerset

North Somerset

North Somerset is a unitary authority in England. Its area covers part of the ceremonial county of Somerset but it is administered independently of the non-metropolitan county. Its administrative headquarters is in the town hall in Weston-super-Mare....

, which was saved as an entirety with its contents in 2002. In 2007, after a prolonged and controversial appeal, Dumfries House

Dumfries House

, an important Scottish country house complete with its original Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale

Thomas Chippendale was a London cabinet-maker and furniture designer in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs, titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director...

furnishings, was saved for the nation following direct intervention and funding from the Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales

Prince of Wales is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the 15 other independent Commonwealth realms...

; its contents had already been catalogued by Sotheby's

Sotheby's

Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...

for auction. The controversy and debate concerning the salvation echoed the debates of the early 20th century about the worth to the national heritage. Today, the British country house is safe from demolition, but its worth is still subject to debate and re-evaluation. The English country house contents auctions

English country house contents auctions

English country house contents auctions are usually held on site at the country house, and have been used to raise funds for their owners, usually before selling the house and estate...

still happen.

External links

Town and Country Planning Act 1932 Published by Legislation.gov.uk. retrieved 3 December 2010.
Town and Country Planning Act 1968 Published by Legislation.gov.uk. retrieved 3 December 2010.
St Louis Art Museum retrieved 22 March 2007
Leonard Jacks, The Great Houses of Nottinghamshire. retrieved 9 December 2010.
Nuthall Temple by Mrs Holden retrieved 23 March 2007
Wolverhampton's Listed Buildings retrieved 23 March 2007
BBC.CO.UK retrieved 23 March 2007
British History Online retrieved 25 March 2007
Independence of Ireland retrieved 25 March 2007
The archaeology of the Great Famine
Researching Strong(e)s and Strang(e)s in Britain and Ireland
Scotland's Places; Bathgate, Balbardie House retrieved 9 December 2010.
List of 1787 lost English country houses

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