Traveling Tuesday: Britain's Country Homes

Traveling Tuesday: 

Britain’s County Homes

Pixabay/Vane Monte

A Lesson in Love, my contribution to “The Strength of His Heart” charity anthology takes place in an English country home. Simply put, a country home is a large house or mansion in the countryside. The reason for the moniker was that many who owned such places also owned a house in town (or the city), referred to as a “town house.” According to Wikipedia, the term also “encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the “landed gentry.” Depending on which sites you peruse, country homes may also be called manor homes. Other sites, differentiate between the two.

Country homes were generally not fortified. If a structure is fortified, it is called a castle (however there

Pixabay/VariousPhotography

are notable exceptions such as Highclere Castle in Hampshire that is not fortified.) The term “country home” was first used in Felicia Hemans’ 1827 poem “The Home of England.” Noel Coward’s 1938 song “The Stately Homes of England” written for the musical “Operette” uses the term and spoofs ownership as Genius.com puts it “making it clear that owning such a property isn’t nearly as romantic as it seems.”

Country homes have evolved since their inception in the second half of Elizabeth I’s reign as well as her successor’s, James I. Some of the homes were converted into private residences from ecclesiastical properties after Henry VIII’s “Dissolution of the Monasteries.”

Pixabay/Siggy Nowak

Some of the country homes were the creation of one architect or designer built in a short period of time, such as Blenheim Palace, however most country homes involved successive owners over decades, if not centuries, multiple designers who combined a mixture of architectural styles. Depending on the size of the owner’s ego, the designs were a testament to the individual’s power or desire for power.

Today, many of the homes have become hotels, schools, hospitals, and museums, while others have transferred ownership to trusts to avoid taxation. Others are available as venues for parties, weddings, filming locations, or corporate entertainment. Still others are open for public tours.

Have you had a chance to visit one or more of Britain’s country homes?

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About A Lesson in Love (Part of The Strength of His Heart anthology)

He thinks he’s too old. She thinks she’s too young. Can these teachers learn that love defies all boundaries?

Born and raised in London, Isobel Turvine knows nothing about farming, but after most of the students in her school evacuate during Operation Pied Piper, she’s left with little to do. Then her friend Margery talks her into joining the Women’s Land Army, and she finds herself working the land at a manor home in Yorkshire that’s been converted to a boys’ school. A teacher at heart, she is drawn to the lads, but the handsome yet stiff-necked headmaster wants her to stick to farming.

Left with an arm that barely works from the last “war to end all wars,” Gavin Emerson agrees to take on the job of headmaster when his school moves from London to Yorkshire, but he’s saddled with the quirky manor owner, bickering among his teachers, and a gaggle of Land Army girls who have turned the grounds into a farm. When the group’s blue-eyed, raven-haired leader nearly runs him down in a car, he admonishes her to stay in the fields, but they are thrown together at every turn. Can he trust her not to break his heart?

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