Stately Homes of England

Barnsley House

Brocket Hall is an Grade I-listed classical country house set in a large park at the northern end of the urban area of Hatfield in Hertfordshire, England.

Capesthorne Hall is a country house near the village of Siddington, Cheshire, England.

Cranborne Manor is a Grade I listed country house in Cranborne

Dillington House, Ilminster, Somerset, England

English Manor

Garsington Manor

Mapperton House, Dorset, England.

Sir John Vanbrugh.  Blenheim Palace, south elevation, c. 1722.

Somerleyton Hall is a country house in the village of Somerleyton near Lowestoft, Suffolk, England

Somerleyton Hall

Stokesay Castle, Shropshire, England

Tofte manor

The original country house at Eastwell was built for Sir Thomas Moyle between 1540 and 1550. One of the men employed on the estate was the bricklayer Richard Plantagenet, who claimed to be an illegitimate son of Richard III.

Much of Eastwell Manor, the building that now serves as a hotel, was built in the neo-Elizabethan style between 1793–1799 for George Finch-Hatton, 9th Earl of Winchilsea.

A Victorian Tudor-style wing was later added; the house had seven bays and wings of three bays each.

In the mid-1860s, the 11th Earl of Winchilsea experienced serious financial difficulties, which eventually forced him to leave the property. On 4 December 1868 trustees appointed under the Winchilsea Estate Act (1865) entered into a contract to let Eastwell Park, together with its furnishings and effects, to the Duke of Abercorn for a period of five years. Lord Winchilsea had been obliged to vacate the property some time prior to December 1868, and he was formally adjudged bankrupt on 5 October 1870.

Eastwell was next occupied by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria. He lived here with his family until 1893, when he inherited the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in Germany. During that time, Queen Victoria was a frequent visitor and there are photographs of her skating on the lake. Prince Alfred's older brother, the future Edward VII, was also a visitor. In 1875, Prince Alfred's daughter Princess Marie - who later became queen of Romania - was born at the house. In her memoirs, she recalls "beautiful Eastwell with its great gray house, its magnificent park, with its herds of deer and picturesque Highland cattle, its lake, its woods, its garden with the old cedar tree which was our fairy mansion." In 1884, another of Alfred's children, Princess Beatrice - who later married into the Spanish Royal Family - was also born at Eastwell.

After the First World War, the Eastwell estate faced the same economic problems that also affected many other English stately homes. In the 1920s the main house was severely damaged by fire and rebuilt on the same site in 1926-1928.

After many changes, Eastwell Manor is now operated as a country house hotel. There is an indoor swimming pool, and a nine-hole golf course has been laid out in the grounds. The rest of the estate is used for farming.