Reading the Regency

Property - The Country House

"A house within five miles of London, on a public road, is a fair mark for loungers, idlers and consumers of time and provisions. I had not been quietly settled a fortnight at my country house, when I found it turned into an inn, or a Sunday ordinary, a cake house, a tea drinking place, and, in short, every thing but what I intended."
[The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1809, volume 13, pub. 1810, by James Ridgway]

A Country House was simply a house in the country, beyond any built-up area like a town or city. Wealthy families also used the term to differentiate between their country house and their townhouse.

Country houses were inhabited by gentlemen, clergymen, farmers, people who had a private income and the better-off tradesmen, who didn't have to live "above the shop". Peers also had homes in the country, where they could relax when Parliament was not in session, hunt, fish and entertain guests.

Most gentlemen, and the majority of peers, had one country house. A small number had more than one house in the country, often acquired through inheritance, marriage or speculation. Seven peers had four country seats: Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Devonshire, Duke of Buccleuch, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Marquess of Downshire, Earl of Ferrers and Earl of Cassilis.

Rich businessmen and merchants, who had made their fortunes from the industrial revolution, also invested their newly-made fortunes in country houses, where they could retire and live their life in the style of a country gentleman. According to Maria Edgeworth, this idea of businessmen moving out of the city and into the countryside was particularly common in Ireland:

"Many London tradesmen, after making their thousands and their tens of thousands, feel pride in still continuing to live like plain men of business; but from the moment a Dublin tradesman of this style has made a few hundreds, he sets up his gig, and then his head is in his carriage, and not in his business; and when he has made a few thousands, he buys or builds a country-house--and then, and thenceforward, his head, heart, and soul are in his country-house, and only his body in the shop with his customers."
[Chapter 6, The Absentee, by Maria Edgeworth]

One way a country house differed from a townhouse was the amount of space available to build on. Country houses tended to be spread out, rather than tall and thin, like townhouses. Because of this, many country houses were built over three floors, with the ground floor being the principal floor. They would be surrounded by gardens and had windows looking out on all four sides. Where the principal floor was raised above ground level, it was usually to improve the view of the park from the windows:

"A house in the country is so different from a house in town, that I see no good reason for disposing the living rooms above stairs; it may perhaps be said that the views are more perfect from the higher level; but a considerable degree of elevation may be obtained by building the cellars partly above ground, and afterwards raising the earth over them; surely the inconveniencies of an external staircase can scarcely be compensated by any improvement of the view."
[Architectural Sketches for Cottages, Rural Dwellings, and Villas, in the Grecian, Gothic and Fancy styles, by Robert Lugar, pub. 1805]

Kitchens were frequently built in separate wings above ground, so that if a fire started in the kitchen it would be less likely to damage the main house. In many houses, only cellars or storerooms would be found below ground.

There was no such thing as a "typical" country house. They came in all shapes, sizes and designs, and dated from the earliest Medieval manor houses and castles through to the latest Georgian villas and mansions in the newest styles. During the Regency period, the fashionable styles for newly built houses and mansions were Gothic, with their castle-like battlements and pointed windows, Classical, drawing from Roman and Greek antiquity, and the Ornee style that aimed to blend houses into the natural landscape.