Talk:Country house (dwelling)

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Rednex[edit]

Note: Rednex are linked on WikiPedia as having started the Country House music fad.

Pcpcpc[edit]

Well Pcpcpc, I admire your courage - that is a very impressive list of headings, would it not be better to first fill some in with something - anything? However, If there is a comprehensive study under each of these headings we are going to have a book not an article.

For example: The European country house cannot be simply slotted in as the final heading, the subject is larger than all the rest put together, and far more complex. If this page is going to work then it has to be carved up, it is just too large a subject. This is the first time I have ever argued for a smaller article on wikipia.

The weekend - The subject is a minefield, are you going, with architecture, or the people who lived there (upstairs and down), or the goings on (disreputable and political often both) in country houses, that's England alone.

Old and new money has nothing to do with country houses, merely the people who occupied and built them, to categorise architecture according to origin of owner's wealth is pointless, as most houses are built by 'new money' from Montacute House to Villa Farnese. If this article is to stand, as you plan it, a snowball in hell's chance of working, it has to be severely confined and restricted to one country. That's my opinion - over to you. Giano 15:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I am supposed to edit your post if I want to respond to it, but I can't see any other way of doing so.

I certainly don't intend to write a book; I will make liberal use of links, eg to architectural styles and specific houses. But where else than in the article about the British Country House would you find out, for example, which are the principal British country houses in say the baroque style? That's the sort of information I intend to provide.

The paragraph on the European country house will be no more than a few remarks on the differences between Britain and European houses and aristocratic lifestyles, liberally peppered with appropriate links if I can find some.

It isn't the case that "most" country houses were always built by new money: there is a graph in one of the books on my shelves which shows the trends. The distinction between the construction of houses by old money and new money is one of the main topics in any book on the 19th century country house. In this context old money means established landed families and new money means industrialists. This was the period when newly wealthy Britons ceased to invest the whole of their fortune in landed property as they had traditionally done, and the connection between the country house and the agricultural estate began to loosen. This is substantively different from earlier periods when new families climbed to the top of the same old aristocratic hierarchy, such as in Tudor England.

I intend to cover a little social history as well as architectural history, hence the "Country House Weekend" title. The weekend visit was a sign of the changing and diminishing role of the country house in the early Twentieth century. I'm not going to overdo it though. I should have time to fill in a few sections tomorrow.

Yes you are supposed to reply to me here that way it keeps everything all together; firstly if you are going to write about British country houses then the page needs to be moved to a title to reflect that, you must remember tha a large percentage of editors are from USA and would expect to see reference to some of their's, colonial architecture etc.

:::Your original article was solely about the British country house. I'll think about changing the title and doing a redirect, but I'm not sure yet.

The new money in Victorian times merely built using newer and more modern techniques, and the new country houses did usually have a large estate, there may be a few exceptions but this was rare. To be accepted by their neighbours the estate and hunting was essential the Rothschild houses of Buckinghamshire spring to mind, but don't forget the old aristocracy were also building new houses in the same vein at the same time. The Duke of Bedford, and many Scottish 'castles'. I don't think the smaller often gothic piles which litter Surrey, and the outer suberbs of London, Glasgow, Birmongham and Edinburgh without estates can really be classed as country houses, indeed one could even argue that a house without an estate is not a country house.

:::Use of "different techniques" is hardly a key point. The role of land did diminish from earlier absolute primacy during the Nineteenth century, and indeed this process continues today. I will try to make it clear that the change was not sudden. I know all about the Dukes of Bedford as Woburn was my local stately home when I was a boy. I am also aware of the difference between a country house and a house in the stockbroker belt.

I am not against this re-write, but playing Devil's advocate, there's quite a bit on various country houses and their architects now on this site, I'll put some links in to save you the time of finding them. If you are new to this site, and want some technical help, leave a message on my talk page. Good luck Giano 07:55, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've added a few links, there are hundreds more, when I can think of them Giano 08:17, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

:::: Thanks (italics are words of Pcpcps who did not sign)

I'm trying to find out what a "Prodigy House" is and arrived at this article because it seems to contain the only reference in the Wikipedia. Would it be possible to give an explanation?

Merge from Estate (house)[edit]

I definitely support this merge proposal, and I think that Estate (land) should also be merged in here, until such time as someone has the time to write more than a dictionary definition of an estate. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I say we merge Estate (land) and Estate (house) into Country House. I think we then add a link from the Estate disambiguous page to Country House indicating that meaning of the word estate. Then when we disambiguate the page estate many of the meanings of it would point to country house - at the moment it is a bit of a lottery which meaning of estate to use! Pixie2000 22:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


This article is largely concerned with the country house in Britain. There needs to be more about the rest of Europe, or links to other articles about, for instance, the French chateau or Ialian villa. pmalo 9 December 2006

Wikipedia rules regarding titles[edit]

Wikipedia rules say that if there is a song or film named Country House, the article of that song should be called Country House, not "Country House (song)" or anything like that. Therefore, the redirect, ecentually I hope the whole article will migrate here.--Wormsie 19:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blatant self-promotion by DiCamillo[edit]

There have been a series of extremely obvious attempts to promote the website and activities of Curt DiCamillo in this article by the user/users Curt1776; 71.233.248.2; and 216.41.116.162. This is in contravention of a number of wiki policies including WP:NPOV and WP:SOCK. Elsewhere, these users seem to be ignoring WP:BLP. If these policies continue to be ignored these users may be blocked or banned. Flozu 11:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User 216.41.116.162 is ignoring the warning. Probably not a good idea. Flozu 07:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
He's done it another couple of times. Looks like a case for blocking. Chelseaboy 18:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many apologies for what has apparently become a bit of an issue! A number of supportive friends, in addition to me, have posted these promotions for my site, clearly misunderstanding they violated Wikipedia policies. We thought some mischievous person was removing the posts; it wasn't until I started poking around in Wikipedia today to try to better understand what was going on (I wasn't aware of the discussion pages, for instance) that I became aware that this was inappropriate. I have thus removed the offending text and can assure you it will not appear again. -Curt DiCamillo, June 9, 2007.

Merge proposal Buitenplaats[edit]

I propose to merge the article Buitenplaats here. This is merely the Dutch term for Country House. Any unique and specific info related to Dutch country houses can be incorporated in a separate section. There is no point in foreign word entries in WP. Its meaningless to a non-Dutch-speaking person because the word buitenplaats is not used at all in English and will never be a loanword. -- P199 17:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is one way you could see it, but I believe there are substantial enough differences between Country houses in the UK and in general with the Dutch Buitenplaatsen to have a seperate article. The Buitenplaats is directly connected with the Dutch Golden Age. I can't help either that English doesn't have a suitable specific translation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.98.186.146 (talk) 17:29, August 23, 2007 (UTC)
Something need to be done because we already have this page English country house which seems more complete than the page here - perhaps this one could be deleted or made into a disambig for similar house and their names arownd the world. Giano 11:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK - I have been bold and moved this long unfinished page to English country house, there seems no information here that was not there. Giano 11:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

DAB Page[edit]

I made this a dab page, since not all country houses are English, and a redirect to a narrower topic is therefore not the most appropriate. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And after reviewing the dab links (over 600 exclusively for English Country House, AFAICS), I've reverted that change. --JaGatalk 23:25, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh well it was worth a try. Jonathan Oldenbuck (talk) 16:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Only in Britain?[edit]

It doesn't seem reasonable to me to define "country house" as something that exists only in the UK and Ireland. Even within the Anglophone world there are plenty of rural estates called by that name--in my home state of Massachusetts in the USA, for example, we have such estates as The Mount, the Lyman Estate, and the Gore Place, all of which are described as country houses in their respective Wikipedia articles. And it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to use the English-language term "country house" as a catchall term for genteel/aristocratic mansions in the countryside, whatever country they're in--i.e., it would seem like the most reasonable English term to use to describe the category to which Italian villas, French chateaux, and German Schlösser belong. If "country house" isn't the right general term for such structures, what is? 206.208.105.129 (talk) 13:17, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]