Stately Home - Origin of The Term

Origin of The Term

The phrase stately home is a quotation from the poem The Homes of England, which was originally published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1827. The poem is by Felicia Hemans, and it begins as follows:

The stately Homes of England,

How beautiful they stand,

Amidst their tall ancestral trees,

O’er all the pleasant land!

Noël Coward, English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, wrote and performed a parody of the above:

The stately homes of England,

How beautiful they stand,

To prove the upper classes

Have still the upper hand.

In the later, Las Vegas phase of his career, Coward revised his lyrics:

The stately homes of England,

We proudly represent;

We only keep them up

For Americans to rent....