Talk:Stately home

I am unsure why Country House is redirected to this page. There are many 'Stately Homes' in towns and cities: Kenwood House, Apsley House, being just two in London which spring instantly to mind, whereas there are no country houses anywhere but in the country. Stately homes (mansions)in the town, and mansions in the country often have different plans and requirements. I feel they should be treated differently and have separate pages. Giano 19:39, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Kenwood was a country house, its just that the city grew.... Justinc 11:38, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Grand city houses may even be palaces (though not in UK), but they are never "stately homes". "Stately homes" are grand country houses. Power houses. In France, you'd not find an hôtel in the country or a château in the city. --Wetman 13:11, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have a problem with this oh-so-NPOV sentence:
 * "Stately homes" is a real estate dealers' phrase, more suited to Robin Leach's enthusiastic gush on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and to the poised vocabulary of Dame Edna Everage.

Who are we to say what it's "more suited" for, or to describe the style of certain people? Morgan Wick 06:29, 23 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I beleive in England at least "Stately home" only refers to those houses which are open to the public for viewing rather than all private houses which happen to be very large or have historic contents. Giano 13:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Stately homes
I have reverted your edits to those country houses on my watch list. "Stately home" is an unencyclopedic and very ambiguous term and in no way takes precedence over the term country house as it defines more an industry than a type of building, its use or architecture. Wentworth Woodhouse is not even open to the public - so does not even qualify as on the grounds that its available for public view. Giacomo Returned 09:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have just looked at you edits to Stately home. The edits are littered with errors - for a start, stately homes are not always in the country - what about Apsley House, Spencer House or even Buckingham palace, to name but a few just in London? You seem to be confusing country house and stately home as meaning the same thing. I see you have Wetworth Woodhouse as the lead image - large + country does not equal stately. This stattement here: "Thus Belvoir Castle, Warwick Castle, etc., whilst converted to grand residences, are not true stately homes" is complete rubbish - Belvoir was almost completely rebuilt in the 19th century and literally tens of castles qualify as part of the "stately home industry"; there are numerous other such edits; I would go as far as to say the page is now so misleading that it's almost a candidate for deletion. Please research and ammend all the errors. Giacomo Returned 09:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Am grateful that a discussion has been opened on this topic. I suggest it now be continued on the Stately home talk page. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 13:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC))

Amendments to Stately home.
It should be noted firstly that the article before my edits cited no sources at all, which had rightly attracted a "cite" tag criticism. The article needs considerable work on it, and hopefully this discussion will be the start of it. There are those who are prejudiced against the term. I am not one of them. This is a valid and accurate definition to use for certain very few properties. Country house is far too broad. To place Chatsworth under the same appelation as a small cotswold manor house used by a middle-executive as his week-end retreat is not helpful. Chatsworth is in reality a palace of the grandest sort, and requires a different terminology. Royal palaces such as Buckingham Palace are in a different category: Palace, as is Hampton Court etc. Clearly it is incorrect to call Buckingham Palace a Stately Home. Perhaps this should be clarified in the article. Stately homes are renown for their setting in parkland, which is why I would suggest the term is not applicable to grand town residences such as Apsley House, or some of the others listed. These are what the Frence call Hotel de Ville, not Chateaux. There seems to be no adequate term in English, perhaps "London seat" adequately conveys the grandness of such residences. Their function was different, mainly used as bases for transacting business at court and in parliament. Country house may well be used as a term by their owners, in the noble upper-class British tradition of using the understatement, and indeed such modesty is quite seemly. But the proper term used by the objective observer is Stately Home. This is not a term used only by "Dame Edna" or other "outsiders", the sense of which I don't quite follow. The article previously said there were 500 of them. I have struggled to identify more than 30 really great houses existing in England, using the WP listings of all "Historic Houses". We need to stratify the various categories of houses and ideally list the sort of houses properly included within each, i.e. in descending order : Stately Home, Great Country House, Country Mansion, Manor House, Country House (my suggested list & ordering only). The latter is an umbrella term including most, but used most frequently of 5-6 bedroom houses, on the scale of the "Old Rectory". When a person announces "I've just bought a country house", even if that person is very wealthy, i.e. a director of a FT_SE 100 company, this is what is conveyed, not the acquisition of Castle Howard and an estate of several thousand acres. The article needs to examine the attributes of a Stately Home, i.e., size, possession of wings (generally for neo-classical forms), setting, function. It is meaningless to call Blenheim Palace a "Country House" - that does not adequately describe it, even a "Great Country House" is inadequate. I hope we are not seeing some sort of inverted snobbery creeping in here causing a rejection of the term Stately Home. It is a term of great nobility, a mot juste however haphazardly coined, which is not about to be written out of the English language because "Dame Edna" uses the term disparagingly. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 14:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC))P.S. Stately Home has nothing whatever to do with whether the house is open to the public or not, as you suggest. Neither is it a term exclusively descriptive of an industry. The practice of admitting the public to stately homes on a fully commercial basis only started in the 1950/60's with the opening of Longleat House & Safari Park. The term was in existence long before that time. To disqualify Wentworth Woodhouse on the grounds it is not open to the public is incorrect. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 14:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC))
 * There are no grounds at all for suggesting that "stately home" applies only to the "grandest houses" or houses only in parkland - I'm unsure how you have come to this conclusion - it is a meaningless, almost slang, term that conveys nothing. I have no idea what the illustrious Dame Edna says or thinks, or if it is inverted snobbery (I have never touched the page), but do you really think that the Duke of Devonshire says "come and have dinner at my stately home?" It is neither an architectural or an accepted social term. By all means have a page explaining the term, but it should not be be used in the lead in pages on such places as Chatsworth to define the house. The categories you suggest in descending order are plain wrong - a manor can be grander or smaller than a castle and a country house can have from 4 to 40 bedrooms - such terms are impossible to assess and strictly define - see Harlaxton Manor v Cothay Manor or to go one step further Scone Palace v Blenheim Palace - the terms "manor", "palace", "house" and "castle" in British architecture are often historical and as a result meaningless regarding size, and that is part of their fun, for Wikipedia to try and categorise/grade them is presumptious and silly. However, that does not mean that they should be unified under the meaningless banner, "stately home." All I am requesting, is that this page be factual and fully referenced - preferably not by Noel Coward and Edna Everage, who were not an architectural commentators. Giacomo Returned  19:29, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS:Country houses are correctly so called to distinguish them from their owners' town houses. Rectories, vicarages and small manors were not built as a country house because their occupants would have lived solely in that house. However, times change, and many houses seem to be aggrandised (is that a word?) usually for purpose of pushing up a sale price - so country house, today, is erroniously used to encompass any large old house out of town. Having said that, you will still not find an accademic talking of "stately homes" in a serious architectural or social way, books entitled "The Stately Homes of Robert Adam" or documents concerning the building of a "stately home." The term, when used, is purely a a marketing ploy or a tongue in cheek joke; unlike "country house", it has no clear origins or definitions based in fact. Even the grandest of Britains houses - Blenheim, Chatsworth, Woburn are (even today) their owners "country houses" - and that is what they are. Wikipedia cannot change that because it finds the term confusing, it is our job to explain not alter the English language. Giacomo Returned 23:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

You are correct to state that "a country house can have between 4-40 bedrooms". A stately home however cannot. You yourself have just clearly identified one the many differences. It must have a number at the very top end of your scale. This is why it is a term of greater precision to describe palatial country residences. I agree with you about the irrelevance of the Dame Edna reference (not my contribution). The Noel Coward reference is however useful. The term Stately Home is not "a marketing ploy or a tongue in cheek joke" as you believe. It is a proper descriptive term, listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. I quote from the autobiography of John, 13th Duke of Bedford, "A Silver Plated Spoon", London 1959, p.2 of chap.1: "Woburn is one of the loveliest of England's stately homes". You are taking a purely historical usage of the term Country House which is fine, and of much interest, but this is not the way in which the term is used today. Of course to their owners who also live in London they are their "country houses", but this article is objective, looking at the subject from the observer's viewpoint. I do not agree that, as you state: "for Wikipedia to try and categorise/grade them (i.e. country houses) is presumptious and silly". I think it would be a useful and ambitious exercise, providing supporting sources can be found. (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 13:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC))
 * You are correct to reference that particular Duke of Bedford; he invented the "stately home business." (ie: homes marketed to the public for various reasons) However, the term is still meaningless as many as Englands grandest houses are even today not open to the paying public. If you really want to identufy the finest, then you might like to peruse this site and its terminology  - I don't like that term much either, but at least it's one that all the owers of the finest houses open to the public can agree on. I'm afraid stately home is ambiguous and meaningless and ill-defined and smacks of the music hall. Wikipdia is a serious project - is you want to write "stately home" you may just as well write "it's a big posh/fancy house" - country house is the correct term (if you feel further adjectives are required then I suggest "important (with ref)" and the Grade I or 2*. Incidentally, both Woburn and Castle Howard have very few bedrooms - I forget the exact numbers, so I would not base too much of your arguement on bedroom numbers - only  in the 19th century with the invention of the house-party did houses begin to have numerous bedrooms for guests and staff  Giacomo Returned  18:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I am really surprised at the vehement opposition to the term "Stately Home" that you express. I don't know if that's shared by any one else? Please speak up here! As I suggested in my earlier post a stately home is not defined by being open to the public, but you persist in stating that to be the case. Could we agree on this point to make some progress? The term "Treasure House" used by your external reference is indeed a marketing term, and I would agree with you best avoided as a formal description. The list of properties I almost agree with, but not Beaulieu, too small in comparison & Leeds Castle, still essentially a converted mediaeval castle, like Belvoir. Harewood & Hatfield certainly have the grandeur to be termed stately homes, but possibly not in the top ten in terms of sheer size, or square footage. As for your suggestion of Grade I/II, many farm cottages are grade II, so not helpful as a defining criterion, and Grade I covers a huge territory, including I believe 1960's concrete ex-council towers. As for "Important" country house, that seems to me to be somewhat pompous, a term often used by the estate agent. Surely Castle Howard would have to be termed "Very Important" to make such a term useful. Compton Wynates is an "Important Country House", certainly a "Great Country House", a Tudor manor house, but not approaching the scale or category of Blenheim.  The term Stately Home was coined in 1827, according to the existing article, which I have no reason to doubt as it is referenced to Blackwood's Magazine. That is a pedigree of 184 years in use, for most of which time the music-hall had not been invented. How can it be a "music-hall term" as you suggest?  It is a thoroughly well-established formal term. How is the term less-ambiguous than the hugely broad term "country house" favoured by you, covering houses from 4-40 bedrooms, as you define it? On the contrary it is a term which is highly exclusive as it excludes all but the palatial. Neither is it "meaningless", it is easily defined as "the very largest country residence", which also shows it is not "ill-defined". Incidentally, the Duke of Bedford referred to did not invent the business of opening houses to the public, as you suggest. I think that was the Marquess of Bath at Longleat. I quote from the same autobiog., p.177:" I had realized from the beginning that the only way of financing the re-opening of the house (disused as a family residence by his predecessor) would be to follow the tentative  example of other families in our position, and allow the public to see it in return for an entrance fee". (Lobsterthermidor (talk) 20:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC))
 * I'm sorry that you don't like the term "country house" - I did not invent it, it just happens to be what they are correctly called, whether you, me or he, she it likes it or not I don't think I will bother to debate further with you here. I shall just watch with interest what you write and the references that you use. Good evening. Giacomo Returned 21:00, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * PS: Don't bother telling me about Compton Wynyates being important - I wrote the page; Oh and Blenheim too. Giacomo Returned 21:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Top 10
Even if I agreed with the term "stately home" what is this list "largest 10" and /or "Top 10" all about? What is the criteria for this list - size Woburn should not be there) - numbers of paying public visiting (Wentworth Woodhouse should not be there) architecture (at least two are unremarkable in terms of great architecture). This list is badly thought out, unreferenced POV and needs to be removed. Giacomo Returned 18:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * removed it as it was "pure original research but it has since been restored. I can't support the top 10 (largest by what measure?) as it's not particularly helpful and even the list itself is unsourced. Nev1 (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well it should stay removed. I will not endorse this list by saying which are the largest, but let's just say the list is so wrong in everyway, it is just not true. Giacomo Returned 18:15, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The list starts with "Any listing of stately homes must necessarily be subjective . The following is a possible list of the top 10 such residences in approximate descending order of size:" (underlining to emphasise the key words.). I can not think of a more blatant admission that what follows is original research. If it started, "According to xxx, the following are the most import 10 stately homes (cite)", then it might be acceptable. There is no source. What we have is just one editor's list. That is original research and the list must be deleted. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have integrated the top 10 list into the rest of the "list of stately homes" for pretty mmuch all the reasons given in this thread. It wouldn't break my heart to see the whole list disappear, but the top 10 aspect was riddled with POV and without a source had to go. Nev1 (talk) 17:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Says who?
"Residences less than palatial should be referred to as "Grand Country Houses", "Mansions", or "Manor Houses". Stately homes are often referred to affectionately and informally as "country piles", perhaps suggesting the burdensome nature of their upkeep." I a removing this phrase. Who is saying this? - strictly speaking an English manor house is so called for historic reasons - and can have anything from three of four to four hundred plus rooms. Blenheim Palace and Chatsworth are as much "mansions" as any other large house - these terms are not strictly defined anywhere - if anyone doubts me, look at Harlaxton Manor - palatial by anyone's standards - and of course the nest point is what does palatial mean - has anyone ever defined what is or is not a palace? As for "country piles", let's just not go there.Giacomo Returned 18:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

British Isles only?
Per Stately homes in America from colonial times to the present day published in 1903 there have been stately homes in America for a long time. This proves the claim in article "The term is not used for large houses located elsewhere in the English-speaking world, i.e. USA, Australia etc." is false and should be removed from the article. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 06:25, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Redirected
With note of all the comments here, I have redirected the page to English country house, which I have expanded and begun to reference; it also contains (now) a section explaining the tern "stately home." English country house is far from perfect or complete and needs a lot more work, but it's far better than this page and the misinformation, POV and rubbish that it contained. Giacomo Returned 14:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I fully support this redirect Giacomo's plans. Thank you. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 17:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Now that the redirect has been reversed, I have formerly proposed a merge. The discussion is at Talk:English country house. Please discuss it there and do not remove the merge tags until that discussion has been closed by a neutral editor. -- Bduke   (Discussion)  22:40, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

relationship to the French logis seigneurial?
There is an article in the French Wikipedia, with no analogous English one, on the fr:logis seigneurial, which seems like a similar concept. Should this article be broadened to include such content, and the two interwiki-linked? Or is the intent of this article to discuss the British concept specifically? --Delirium (talk) 16:59, 9 March 2014 (UTC)