from this class. So necessary was the country house deemed to be that following the election of the first Labour Government in 1921, Viscount Lee of Fareham donated his country house Chequers to the nation for the use of a Prime Minister who might not possess one of his own. Chequers still fulfils that need today as do both Chevening House and Dorneywood country houses, donated for sole use of high-ranking ministers of the crown.
Zenith of the English country house.
During the 18th and 19th centuries to the highest echelons of British society the country house served as a place for relaxing, hunting and running the country with one's equals at the end of the week. However, there were many Squires who lived permanently on their country estates, seldom visiting London at all. The country house was the centre of its own world, providing employment to literally hundreds of people in the vicinity of its estate. In previous eras when state benefits were unheard of, those working on an estate were among the most fortunate, receiving secured employment and rent-free accommodation. At the summit of these fortunate people was the indoor staff of the country house. Until the 20th century, unlike many of their contemporaries, they slept in proper beds, wore well-made adequate clothes and received three proper meals a day, plus a small wage. In an era when many still died for lack of medicine or malnutrition, the long working hours were a small price to pay. The film Gosford Park, the reality series The Edwardian Country House and some episodes of the TV series Upstairs, Downstairs accurately recreated the stratified and repressed but secure atmosphere of the English country house just surviving into the age of the automobile.
Many aristocrats owned more than one country house and would visit each according to the season: Grouse shooting in Scotland, pheasant shooting and fox hunting in England. The Earl of Rosebery, for instance, had Dalmeny in Scotland, Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire and another near Epsom just for the racing season.
Decline.
The slow decline of the English country house coincided with the rise of modern industry, which provided alternate means of employment for large numbers of people and contributed to upwardly mobile middle classes, but its ultimate demise began immediately following World War I. The huge staff required to maintain them had either left to fight and never return, departed to work in the munitions factories, or to fulfil the void left by the fighting men in other workplaces. Of those who returned with the cessation of war, many left the countryside for better-paid jobs in towns. The final blow for many country houses came following World War II; having been requisitioned during the war, they were returned to the owners in poor repair. Many of whom having lost their heirs, if not in the immediately preceding war then in World War I, were now paying far higher rates of tax, and agricultural incomes from the accompanying estates had
