The Country House Revealed is a six part BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 series first aired on BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 in May 2011 in which British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 architectural historian

Architectural historian

A architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it Similar profession are known widely such as Historian, Art historian and Archaeologist. Architectural historians survey areas that are often threatened by extinction...

 Dan Cruickshank

Dan Cruickshank

Dan Cruickshank is an art historian and BBC television presenter.-Early life:As a young child he lived for some years in Poland...

 visits six houses never before open to public view, and examines the lives of the families who lived there.

Episodes

Episode 1 tells the story behind South Wraxall Manor, hidden in the depths of the Wiltshire countryside. Built by a family with a dramatic and chequered history - the Longs

Robert Long (politician)

Robert Long of Draycot Cerne was an English politician.Born in Wiltshire, he was the son of Roger le Long.In 1414 Long was elected Member of Parliament for Old Sarum, and MP for Wiltshire in 1421, 1423–24, 1429–30, 1433, and again in 1442...

 - who rose in prominence through the Tudor period to become knights of the realm, friends of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and one of the most powerful dynasties in England.

Episode 2 tells the story of architect Sir William Bruce and Kinross House

Kinross House

Kinross House is a late 17th-century country house overlooking Loch Leven, near Kinross in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Construction of the house was begun in 1686, by the architect Sir William Bruce as his own home. It is regarded as one of his finest works, and was called by Daniel Defoe "the...

.

Episode 3 examines the architecture of Easton Neston

Easton Neston

Easton Neston is a country house near Towcester, Northamptonshire, England, and is part of the Easton Neston Parish. It was designed in the Baroque style by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. Easton Neston is thought to be the only mansion which was solely the work of Hawksmoor...

 in Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire

Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...

 and discusses whether it was the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor was a British architect born in Nottinghamshire, probably in East Drayton.-Life:Hawksmoor was born in Nottinghamshire in 1661, into a yeoman farming family, almost certainly in East Drayton, Nottinghamshire. On his death he was to leave property at nearby Ragnall, Dunham and a...

 or Sir Christopher Wren.

Episode 4 shows 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...

 near Rotherham

Rotherham

Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...

, one of the largest country houses in Europe. The building exemplifies the workings of British Parliamentary democracy before the Reform Act of 1832, and is important in the history of Whig politics, its owners having included influential Prime Minister Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, KG, PC , styled The Hon. Charles Watson-Wentworth before 1733, Viscount Higham between 1733 and 1746, Earl of Malton between 1746 and 1750 and The Earl Malton in 1750, was a British Whig statesman, most notable for his two terms as Prime...

. The episode also relates the near-destruction of the estate by controversial open-cast coal mining in the 1940s and 1950s, and speculates on how such a huge country house needing extensive renovation might find a use in the 21st century.

Episode 5 looks at the Clandeboye Estate

Clandeboye Estate

The Clandeboye Estate is a country estate located in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, outside Belfast. Covering , it contains woodlands, formal and walled gardens, lawns, a lake, and of farmland...

 in Northern Ireland.

Episode 6 views Marshcourt in Stockbridge, Hampshire

Stockbridge, Hampshire

Stockbridge is a small town and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It has an acreage of and a population of little under 600 people according to the 2001 census in Hampshire, England. It lies on the River Test, in the Test Valley district and renowned for trout fishing. The A30 road goes through...

, designed by Edwin 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...

.