Elizabeth

Montacute House is a late Elizabethan country house situated in the South Somerset village of Montacute. This house is a textbook example of English architecture during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the Renaissance Classical; this has resulted in Montacute being regarded as... one of the finest houses to survive from the Elizabethan era. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade I listed building, and Scheduled Ancient Monument. It was visited by 110,529 people in 2009. Designed by an unknown architect, the three floored mansion, constructed of the local Ham Hill stone, was built circa 1598 by Sir Edward Phelips, Master of the Rolls. His descendants occupied the house until the early 20th century. Following a brief period, when the house was let to tenants, it was acquired by the National Trust in 1927. Today, it is fully open to the public. Since 1975, the mansion's Long Gallery, the longest in England, has served as a regional outpost of the National Portrait Gallery and displays an important collection of oils and watercolours contemporary to the house.
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Athelhampton is a Grade I listed 15th-century manor house in England. It is a privately owned country house on 160 acres of parkland, located five miles east of Dorchester, Dorset. The house is now open for public visits. In 1086, the site was recorded in the Domesday Book which states that the... Bishop of Salisbury, with Odbold as tenant, held the manor, then called Pidele. The name Aethelhelm appears in the 13th century, when Athelhampton belonged to the de Loundres family. In 1350 Richard Martyn married the de Pydele heiress, and their descendant Sir William Martyn, Lord Mayor of London in 1492, built the current Great Hall in or around 1485. He also received licence to enclose 160 acres of deer park and to fortify his manor. A West Wing and Gatehouse were added in 1550, but in 1862 the Gatehouse was demolished. Sir Robert Long purchased Athelhampton House in 1665 from Sir Ralph Bankes. In 1684 an attempt was made by the court to sequester the estate from the then owner, James Long Esquire , to recover a debt, but this appears to have been unsuccessful.
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