The Treasure Houses of England group is a heritage consortium. It was founded in the early 1970s by nine of the foremost stately homes in England still in private ownership, with the aim of marketing and promoting themselves as tourist venues.
Ten houses are currently in the group. These are (together with their location and historic owners):
Bolton Abbey in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire, England, takes its name from the ruins of the 12th-century Augustinian monastery now known as Bolton Priory. The priory, closed in the 1539 Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered by King Henry VIII, is in the Yorkshire Dales, next to the village of Bolton Abbey.
Harewood House is a country house in Harewood, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam, it was built, between 1759 and 1771, for Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood, a wealthy West Indian plantation and slave-owner. The landscape was designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown and spans 1,000 acres (400 ha) at Harewood.
Lancelot Brown, more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English landscape garden style, which was to sweep over Europe. He is remembered as "the last of the great English 18th-century artists to be accorded his due" and "England's greatest gardener", although there have always been critics of his style.
Harewood is a village, civil parish, former manor and ecclesiastical parish, in West Yorkshire, England, today in the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds. The civil parish population at the 2011 census was 3,734.
Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood, was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the sister of Kings Edward VIII and George VI, and aunt of the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. In the First World War, she performed charity work in support of servicemen and their families. She married Henry Lascelles, Viscount Lascelles, in 1922. Mary was given the title of Princess Royal in 1932. During the Second World War, she was Controller Commandant of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. The Princess Royal and the Earl of Harewood had two sons, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, and The Honourable Gerald Lascelles.
Marquess of Salisbury is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1789 for the 7th Earl of Salisbury. Most of the holders of the title have been prominent in British political life over the last two centuries, particularly the 3rd Marquess, who served three times as Prime Minister in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Antonio Verrio was an Italian painter. He was responsible for introducing Baroque mural painting into England and served the Crown over a thirty-year period.
The Palace of Beaulieu is a former Royal Palace in Boreham, Essex, England, north-east of Chelmsford. The surviving part is a Grade I listed building. The property is currently occupied by New Hall School.
Marquess of Exeter is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1525 for Henry Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon. For more information on this creation, which was forfeited in 1538, see the Earl of Devon.
Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG, known as Lord Burghley from 1598 to 1605, was an English politician, courtier and soldier.
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry that ruled rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses.
Historic Houses is a not-for-profit organisation that represents more than 1,650 privately owned historic country houses, castles and gardens throughout the United Kingdom.
A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom and the Gilded Age in the United States.
Burghley House is a grand sixteenth-century English country house near Stamford, Lincolnshire. It is a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, built and still lived in by the Cecil family. The exterior largely retains its Elizabethan appearance, but most of the interiors date from remodellings before 1800. The house is open to the public on a seasonal basis and displays a circuit of grand and richly furnished state apartments. Its park was laid out by Capability Brown.
Hornby Castle is a grade I listed fortified manor house on the edge of Wensleydale between Bedale and Leyburn, in the county of North Yorkshire, England.
In architecture, a long gallery is a long, narrow room, often with a high ceiling. In Britain, long galleries were popular in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses. They were normally placed on the highest reception floor of English country houses, usually running along a side of the house, with windows on one side and at the ends giving views, and doors to other rooms on the other. They served several purposes: they were used for entertaining guests, for taking exercise in the form of walking when the weather was inclement, for displaying art collections, especially portraits of the family and royalty, and acting as a corridor.
Royal Upstairs Downstairs is a British television documentary series of 20 half-hour episodes broadcast by BBC Two each Monday to Friday evening from 7 March to 1 April 2011. The title is a reference to the drama series Upstairs, Downstairs, which was about life "above stairs", and "below stairs" in an early 20th-century aristocratic household.
Elizabeth Cavendish, Countess of Devonshire was the wife of William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire.