English country house in the context of "English Heritage"

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.

Porticos are sometimes topped with pediments. Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings. In the UK, the temple-front applied to The Vyne, Hampshire, was the first portico applied to an English country house.

The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (French: Jardin à l'anglaise, Italian: Giardino all'inglese, German: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, Portuguese: Jardim inglês, Spanish: Jardín inglés), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical French formal garden which had emerged in the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. Created and pioneered by William Kent and others, the "informal" garden style originated as a revolt against the architectural garden and drew inspiration from landscape paintings by Salvator Rosa, Claude Lorrain, and Nicolas Poussin, as well as from the classic Chinese gardens of the East, which had recently been described by European travellers and were realized in the Anglo-Chinese garden.

The English garden usually included a lake, sweeps of gently rolling lawns set against groves of trees, and recreations of classical temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. The work of Lancelot "Capability" Brown was particularly influential. By the end of the 18th century the English garden was being imitated by the French landscape garden, and as far away as St. Petersburg, Russia, in Pavlovsk, the gardens of the future Emperor Paul. It also had a major influence on the forms of public parks and gardens which appeared around the world in the 19th century. The English landscape garden was usually centred on the English country house, and many examples in the United Kingdom are popular visitor attractions today.

A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with multiple floors on a small footprint. In older British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence (normally in London) of someone whose main or largest residence was a country house.

Wilton House is an English country house at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, which has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years. It was built on the site of the medieval Wilton Abbey. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII presented Wilton Abbey and its attached estates to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. The house has literary associations. Shakespeare's theatre company performed there (As You Like It may have been the chosen work), and there was an important literary salon culture under its occupation by Mary Sidney, wife of the second Earl.

The present Grade I listed house is the result of rebuilding after a 1647 fire, although a small section of the house built for William Herbert survives; alterations were made in the early 19th and early 20th centuries. The house stands in gardens and a park which are also Grade I listed. While still a family home, the house and grounds are open to visitors during the summer months.

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens OM KCIE PRA FRIBA (/ˈlʌtjənz/ LUT-yənz; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings. In his biography, the writer Christopher Hussey wrote, "In his lifetime (Lutyens) was widely held to be our greatest architect since Wren if not, as many maintained, his superior". The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as "surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century".

Lutyens played an instrumental role in the construction of New Delhi, which would later on serve as the seat of the Government of India. In recognition of his contribution, a part of New Delhi is known as "Lutyens' Delhi". In collaboration with Sir Herbert Baker, he was also the main architect of several monuments in New Delhi such as the India Gate; he also designed the Viceroy's House, which is now known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan.Many of his works were inspired by Indian architecture. He was elected Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1933.

Leonardslee is an English country house and English landscape garden and woodland garden in Lower Beeding, near Horsham, West Sussex, England. The Grade I listed garden is particularly significant for its spring displays of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, magnolias and bluebells, with the flowering season reaching its peak in May. The estate includes a 19th-century Italianate style house and lodge as well as an intact Pulhamite rockery.

A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely (though erroneously) applied to various English country houses, mostly at the smaller end of the spectrum, sometimes dating from the Late Middle Ages, which currently or formerly house the landed gentry.

Manor houses were sometimes fortified, albeit not as fortified as castles, but this was often more for show than for defence. They existed in most European countries where feudalism was present.