A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'R'

R - Ragley Hall

Ragley Hall, the ancestral seat of the Marquess of Hertford, is located in Warwickshire, eight miles west of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Ragley Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire
(18 August 2007, ex geograph.org.uk - by David Fiddes - CC BY-SA 2.0

Designed by Robert Hooke in Palladian style, it was built in 1680 for Edward Conway, 1st Earl of Conway.

Later its parkland was laid out by Capability Brown.

During WWI and WWII the hall was used as a military hospital.

!982 saw it used a location in the TV series of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel.' 

It 'became' the Palace of Versailles in the BBC Doctor Who TV series of 2006.

Ragley was also one of the earliest stately homes to be open to the public.

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not -' B'

B - Burghley House

This is a house that I first saw as a boy at Stamford School. Our annual cross-country run was held in its park.

Burghley House, near Stamford, Lincolnshire

I was to get even closer when playing cricket next to the house against the Burghley estate team. 

However it was in the Burghley Park's cricket team pavilion were my live was changed for ever.

Burghley Park Cricket Club pavilion

Here I volunteered during one match to help the ladies wash up after tea. To cut a 60 year story short let me just say I married one of them.

William Cecil, Lord Burghley was the prime councillor to the Queen - Elizabeth I, that is.

His house built between 1555 and 1587 is one of England's largest mansions and was constructed in an enormous 'E' as a tribute to the Queen.

With the house still lived in by the Cecil family many of you may know that the Burghley Horse Trials, a 3 day event, are held in the each year in the park laid out by Capability Brown.

Photo attribution:

• Burghley House - 4 April 2011 - CC transferred ex ml.wikipedia by Sreejith K - in the public domain

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not.- 'A'

A - Audley End

It seems appropriate somehow that an embezzler should end his life at 

Audley End

Thomas Howard, !st Earl of Suffolk,  King James I's Treasurer helped himself to  royal funds to build the splendid home of Audley End in 1614

However he was removed from there when convicted and sent to the Tower of London. After his release he returned to Audley End and died there in 1626.

The large building was expensive to maintain and the Howard family eventually demolished  more than half of it. What remains is still one of the biggest houses in Britain.

King Charles II bought the house in 1668 for the sum of £5 as somewhere to stay when he went to the races at Newmarket; it was returned to the Suffolks in 1701.

Capability Brown was commissioned to landscape the parkland in 1762.

During WWII Audley End became the base for the special-operations paratroops of the Polish Army in exile. A memorial to the men they lost stands in the drive to the house.

In 1948 the Braybrooke family sold the house to the Ministry of Works, the predecessor of English Heritage under whose stewardship Audley End remains. The house and gardens are open to the public at certain times of the year.

Photo attribution:

• Creative commons - Misterzee, 2008 - CC BY-3.0