Stately Home

A stately home is a "great country house". It is thus a palatial great house or in some cases an updated castle, located in the British Isles, mostly built between the mid-16th century and the early part of the 20th century, as well as converted abbeys and other church property (after the Dissolution of the Monasteries). They are in form and substance palaces by another name, yet that term in England is generally reserved for royal or episcopal residences, however modest in comparison to the stately home.