Pride & Prejudice

Wilton House is an English country house situated at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire. It has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years. The first recorded building on the site of Wilton House was a priory founded by King Egbert circa 871. Later, this priory, due to the... munificence of King Alfred, was granted lands and manors until it became wealthy and powerful. However, by the time Wilton Abbey was dissolved during the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII of England, its prosperity was already on the wane — following the seizure of the abbey, King Henry presented it and the estates to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke in c.1544. William Herbert, the scion of a distinguished family in the Welsh marches, was a favourite of the King. Following a recommendation to King Henry by King Francis I of France, whom Herbert had served as a soldier of fortune, Herbert was granted arms after only two years. In 1538, Herbert married Anne Parr, daughter of Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal and sister of King Henry VIII's last Queen, Catherine Parr and William Parr, 1st Marquess of Northampton.
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Groombridge Place is a moated Manor house in the village of Groombridge near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. It has become a tourist attraction, noted for its formal gardens, vineyards and a bird of prey sanctuary. The Raptor Centre There have been manor houses on the site of the present... Groombridge for centuries. The earliest mention of one of these is from 1239, when the Lordship of Groomsbridge was granted to William Russell. William and his wife Haweis built a small moated castle at Groombridge, and, later that year, were granted a charter by Henry III of England to build a chantry. When William died in 1261, lordship was granted to Henry de Cobham, 1st Baron Cobham, heir of the influential Kentish family, the de Cobhams. By the mid 14th century, the lands were held by Sir John de Clinton, whose grandson, Lord Clinton and Saye, sold Groomsbridge to Thomas Waller of Lamberhurst c.1400. Here, his descendant Sir Richard Waller detained Charles, Duke of Orléans, as his prisoner for many years, until he was taken to the Tower of London. The Wallers held Groombridge Place for over two centuries until it was sold in the seventeenth century.
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Basildon Park is a country house situated 3 kilometres south of Goring-on-Thames and Streatley in Berkshire, between the villages of Upper Basildon and Lower Basildon. It is owned by the National Trust and is a Grade I listed building. The house was built between 1776 and 1783 for Sir Francis... Sykes and designed by John Carr in the Palladian style at a time when Palladianism was giving way to the newly fashionable neoclassicism. Thus, the interiors are in a neoclassical "Adamesque" style. Never fully completed, the house passed through a succession of owners. In 1910 it was standing empty and in 1914, it was requisitioned by the British Government as an army convalescent hospital. It was again sold in 1929 and quickly sold again. In 1929, following a failed attempt to dismantle and rebuild the house in the USA, it was stripped of many of its fixtures and fittings and all but abandoned. During World War II, the house was again requisitioned and served as a barracks, a training ground for tanks, and finally a prisoner of war camp—all activities unsuited to the preservation of an already semi-derelict building.
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