Houses

Official Residences

Official residence of the First Minister of Scotland (6 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh)		Bute House
Official summer home of the US President (formerly named Shangri–La; officially the Naval Support Facility Thurmont)		Camp David
Official summer home of the Pope		Castel Gandolfo
Official residence of the President of France (formerly the home of Mme. Pompadour)		Élysée Palace
Official residence of the Bishop of London		Fulham Palace
Official residence of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (since the creation of the post in 1972)		Hillsborough Castle
Official residence of the President of Austria (seat of the Holy Roman Emperors 1428–1583 and 1612–1806, and of the Emperors of Austria 1806–1918)		Hofburg Palace
Official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury		Lambeth Palace
Official residence of the Lord Mayor of London		Mansion House
Official residence of the Prime Minister of Spain		Moncloa Palace
Official residence of the President of Italy		Quirinale Palace
Official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports		Walmer Castle

The Blue House (its local name literally means 'Pavilion of Blue Tiles') is the official residence of the President of

General

The first property bought by the National Trust (in Sussex; 1896, price £10)		Alfriston Clergy House
Model for Muriel Towers in Disraeli's novel Lothair		Alton Towers
Built by Robert Adam in the 1770s for the Lord Chancellor (after whom it was named); sold in 1807 to the elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, and then in 1817 to the Duke himself. The Dukes of Wellington have lived there ever since, although the 7th Duke donated it to the nation in 1947. Nicknamed "No. 1 London", as it was the first house seen when travelling into London, after passing the tollgates at Knightsbridge		Apsley House
Near Saffron Walden, Essex: built by Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk, in the reign of James I; renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England; bought by Charles II in 1668, but returned to the Suffolks in 1701; reduced to one third of its original size in the 18th century		Audley End
Hitler's mountain retreat (Berghof) was near (town in the Bavarian Alps)		Berchtesgaden
Built between 1705 and 1722, as a gift from Queen Anne to the 1st Duke of Marlborough, in recognition of one of his greatest victories; situated outside the village of Woodstock, Oxfordshire		Blenheim Palace
The only house in England that's called a palace and isn't occupied by a member of the royal family or a bishop
The Triumphal Way, the Column of Victory, the Water Gardens, Vanbrugh's Bridge (over the river Glyme) and the Sunken Italian Gardens are features of
Saved from ruin at the end of the 19th century following the 9th duke's marriage to the American railroad heiress Consuela Vanderbilt
Granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1987, in recognition of the quality of the architecture by John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor and the landscaping of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown
Country house in Shropshire where the future King Charles II hid in an oak tree in 1651, after his defeat by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester		Boscobel House
Name is from the Italian for 'beautiful wood(land)'		Boscobel House
Former Cistercian monastery in Devon, bought in 1581 by Sir Francis Drake		Buckland Abbey
House near Stamford, Lincs, built for William Cecil (1st Baron Burghley), chief advisor to Elizabeth II for much of her reign; Queen Victoria planted two trees there; famous for its annual horse trials – one of the six leading three–day events in the world		Burghley House
Near Drewsteignton, Devon (on the edge of Dartmoor): built in the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 20th century for Julius Drewe, founder of the Home and Colonial Stores; designed by Lutyens, gardens by Gertrude Jekyll		Castle Drogo
Stately home in North Yorkshire, built for the Earl of Carlisle 1699–1712; designed by Vanbrugh, assisted by Hawksmoor; used as Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead, in both the 1981 ITV series and the 2008 film		Castle Howard
Country residence of the British Prime Minister (since 1921): in the Chilterns (near Aylesbury, Bucks), bequeathed to the nation by Lord Lee of Fareham		Chequers
Country home near Sevenoaks, Kent: built in the 1620s, reputedly designed by Inigo Jones; bequeathed to the nation in 1967 by the 7th and last Earl Stanhope; since 1980 it's been used as the country residence of the Foreign Secretary		Chevening
Manor house in Avon where Thackeray wrote Vanity Fair and which is used as background in Henry Esmond		Clevedon Court
Stately home near Worksop, Nottinghamshire: has a famous double avenue of lime trees (Europe's longest)		Clumber Park
Mock Tudor mansion near Rothbury, Northumberland, built 1863 by Sir William (Lord) Armstrong; the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric electricity		Cragside
Georgian house (with Victorian and later additions, rebuilt after a fire in 1910) near Burnham, Buckinghamshire: given to the National Trust in 1947 by Lord Courtauld–Thomson, to be used as a country home for a senior member of the Government; recent residents have been John Prescott (when Deputy PM), Alistair Darling and George Osborne (both when Chancellor of the Exchequer)		Dorneywood
William and Dorothy Wordsworth's home in Grasmere, Cumbria, from December 1799 to May 1808 (cf. Rydal Mount)		Dove Cottage
Skye home of the chiefs of the McLeod clan since the 13th century		Dunvegan Castle
Alfred Lord Tennyson's house in Freshwater, Isle of Wight, for most of his tenure as Poet Laureate and until his death		Farringford House
One of the masterpieces of Frank Lloyd Wright, near Pittsburgh; designed in 1935 for businessman Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr.; cost $155,000; opened to the public in 1964		Fallingwater
House in Hampstead with a famous collection of porcelain and keyboard instruments		Fenton House
Ian Fleming's Jamaican mountain retreat		Goldeneye
Country house and estate on the River Wye near Bakewell, Derbyshire: owned by the Duke of Rutland, famous for the legend of a 16th–century elopement between heiress Dorothy Vernon and Thomas Manners, second son of the 1st Duke; the legend is the subject of an opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by Sydney Grundy, and several other literary and dramatic works		Haddon Hall
Elizabethan country house in Derbyshire (between Chesterfield and Mansfield, the latter of which is in Nottinghamshire): said to have inspired the rhyme, "more glass than wall", because of the number and size of its windows; built in the 1590s by Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (known as Bess of ...); passed to her son William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, on her death in 1608, when it became a secondary residence to Chatsworth; passed to the National Trust in 1959		Hardwick Hall
In the West London park where the home of the founder of The Lancet once stood		Harefield Hospital
Built by Robert Cecil, 1607–11: home of the Marquess of Salisbury		Hatfield House
Hampshire seat (near Newbury, Berkshire) of the Herbert family, Earls of Carnarvon: used for the TV series Downton Abbey		Highclere Castle
Home of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of the Clan Campbell		Inverary Castle
Country house near Derby: commissioned in 1759 from Robert Adam by Sir Nathaniel Curzon, whose family have owned the estate since at least 1297		Kedleston Hall
House on Hampstead Heath bought and made into a museum by the Earl of Iveagh (Sir Edward Cecil Guinness)		Kenwood House
Moated manor house near Congleton, Cheshire, built between 1504 and 1610: regarded as one of England's finest examples of timber–framed domestic architecture		Little (or Old) Moreton Hall
Mansion in Palm Beach, Florida: built in the 1920s by the General Foods heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post; bought in 1985 by Donald Trump, and in 2019 it became his (and Melania's) principal residence; name is Spanish for 'Sea to Lake'		Mar–a–Lago
Country house of Lord Rosebery, sold in the 1970s		Mentmore Towers
(Horse race named after) a house in Epsom once leased by the Earl of Derby		The Oaks
House in Middlesex to which Robert Adam added a 'splendid' Ionic portico between 1761–80		Osterley Park
Name given by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. to the 18–acre estate in Beverly Hills that he bought in 1919 for his bride Mary Pickford; described by Life magazine as "a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House ... and much more fun"; after lying empty for several years following Pickford's death in 1979, it was bought in 1988 by Pia Zadora and her husband, Israeli businessman Meshulam Riklis, and subsequently (controversially) demolished		Pickfair
Fortified manor house on the west bank of the Exe estuary, in Devon: home of the Courtenay family (Earls of Devon, de jure from 1556 and de facto from 1831) since around 1400		Powderham Castle
Stately home near Greta Bridge, Co. Durham: gave its name to Velasquez's The Toilet of Venus, which was bought for display there in 1813		Rokeby Park
House (in a village 3 miles north of Ambleside, in the Lake District) where William Wordsworth lived with his wife Mary, their five children, and his sister Dorothy, from 1813 until his death in 1850 (cf. Dove Cottage)		Rydal Mount
Castle near Hythe, Kent: childhood home of Bill Deedes, bought in 1955 by art historian and broadcaster Kenneth Clark; passed to his son Alan Clark MP, who was buried there after his death in 1999		Saltwood Castle
Gothic Revival villa built in Twickenham by Horace Walpole, from 1749, prefiguring the 19th–century Gothic revival		Strawberry Hill House
Country house beside the Thames in west London (Isleworth): built in the 1550s by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (elder brother of Jane Seymour), on the site of an Abbey founded in 1415 by Henry V; bought in 1594 by Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland; interior redesigned in the 1760s by Robert Adam; now the London residence of the Dukes of Northumberland, since Northumberland House, on the Strand (Trafalgar Square) was demolished in 1874		Syon House
Neoclassical mansion near Knutsford, Cheshire: owned by the Egerton family from its construction in the 1770s (on a site owned by the family since 1598) until 1958 when it was bequeathed to the National Trust		Tatton Hall
17th–century house in Troutbeck, near Windermere, Cumbria: donated to the National Trust in 1948; previously the home of the Browne family, local farmers, for 400 years		Townend
Home of the Boscawen family, and seat of Lord Falmouth: near Truro, Cornwall; famous for its botanical garden and arboretum; Britain's first ever tea plantation opened there in 1998		Tregothnan
Buckinghamshire house built 1874–89, in the French Neo–Renaissance style, for the Rothschild family; bequeathed to the National Trust 1957, becoming (2007–8) its second most visited paid entry property		Waddesdon Manor
Named partly after its village near Rotherham, South Yorkshire: dating to 1725, the UK's largest private house; said by some to be the model for Pemberley in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice		Wentworth Woodhouse
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: built between 1792 and 1800, set on fire by British troops in 1814 (during the War of 1812)		The White House
The Canaletto Room – featuring 24 of his masterpieces – is a feature of (English stately home)		Woburn Abbey
Family home of Sir Isaac Newton, near Grantham, Lincolnshire: where he was born on Christmas Day 1642, where he conducted many of his experiments, and where he is said to have observed the apple falling from a tree		Woolsthorpe Manor
Victorian neo–Gothic building on the shores of Windermere, Cumbria: built in 1840 for retired Liverpool surgeon James Dawson, donated to the National Trust in 1929; noted for its gardens; Beatrix Potter and Canon Rawnsley met there in 1887 (she was on her first family holiday in the Lake District, he was the local vicar)		Wray Castle
Timber–framed house in south Manchester: built in 1540 for the Tatton family; beseiged by Parliamentary forces in the winter of 1643–4; donated to Manchester Corporation in 1926, and opened to the public as a museum in 1930; badly damaged in an arson attack in March 2016; restoration due for completion in late 2019		Wythenshawe Hall

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Houses

Official Residences

General