Did forebears of yours live in a grand country pile?

[Timpeall]

Be it a Highclere Castle type affair, a minor country estate in Somerset, maybe some kind of Tudor manor house.

I'm watching The Little Stranger which is set post-WWII and shows a family who can very much not afford to keep the family seat going. It's all dust and decay and slogging away doing their own cooking and cleaning.* God, it's so depressing watching these people in their ramshackle home with the days of former splendour still in living memory. They don't have so much as a ladies maid to throw a hairbrush at anymore.

And I know these houses could only exist for so long because they were able to exploit their servants by paying them two shillings and thrupence and only giving them a half Sunday's holiday every six weeks. But it's still quite poignant.

And then I thought, there must be lots of people living in nice comfy four bed semi-detached houses whose ancestors at some point lived in some seriously impressive gaffs. Do they have framed sepia pictures of the old ancestral pile on the wall?

*These poor buggers also have the added hassle of some ghostly demon.

My husbands ancestors owned a large house in Westminster back in the dim and distant past. We keep asking ourselves where the money went .........!! 😂

Yes, but only found out through one of those DNA test things, then a family tree.

Yes, but you have to go back a few hundred years - landed Gentry/ trade, not aristocracy although a few married in further up the tree.

Wealth has slowly seeped out of the family and I grew up in a bog standard 1930's semi.

My grandparents still lived in the original London house owned by the family, it was purchased new by an ancestor in the early 19th century and the family were the only owners until it was sold in the 1990's on the death of my GPs. There were still staff when my mum grew up there in the 1950's, she went to private school and then to work in the foreign office- she mixed in UMC circles. She married beneath her when she married my dad and wasn't quite forgiven for it. We grew up pretty average (no private school) but would often stay in this huge London townhouse with a smart postcode, my GPs had no money.

The rest of the family had left the U.K. in the 1950's and 60's to find their fortune in other countries (and they did, one in particular became quite famous in his chosen country). This meant it was only my grandfather trying to maintain it which was very difficult to do, they ended up renting out rooms and had a steady stream of interesting people pass through (some famous names, artists and musicians). They also sold off the end of the garden and coach house to raise some money when my grandfather retired in the 1980's. It was a millstone round his neck.

When it was sold there was an auction at Christie's to sell off the household goods. All I got was a piano, one painting and a cheque for a few thousand representing my share of the trust (which was amazing as I used the money as a deposit on a flat when I was 21 and it has set me up for life).

The country house was demolished in the 1950's by the branch of the family who had inherited it.

I would love to live in a large country house provided I had enough money for the upkeep and the heating bills. Sadly, I don't have any wealthy relatives in my family tree and we are not likely to earn that sort of money.

No, my ancestors were slaves for the British Empire.

My dad did family tree and we come from a mix of Irish farmers and good sturdy yeoman stock on his side and urban lower middle class trade on my mothers.

My great aunt did marry a wealthy man and they had a medium size 'country house' which my mum used to run around and play in as a kid but that was sold when he died (no kids, too big for my aunt) and she moved to a much smaller naice house in stockbroker belt Greater London.

My dhs grandmother on the other hand was intriguingly rumoured to be the daughter of an unfortunate liaison between the daughter of the house and some unacceptable young lad, either servant or passing tradesman. She was raised in some kind of weird paid guardian arrangement and never knew her parents but got an occasional card from her mother. I'd love to know more but mil finds it a bit uncomfortable.

@KenAdams

No, my ancestors were slaves for the British Empire.

Unfortunately that doesn’t preclude also having ancestors that lived in stately piles. A friend who has been very successful at tracing her family history and who also did a DNA test has struggled with coming to terms with putting together DNA evidence with evidence of the enslaved status of some of her ancestor, and the non-consensual likelihood of the circumstances in which both strands came together.

@31RooCambon - it was a bit earlier than that - I have never been but my parents tell me that there are some ruins standing.

How horrific for your family though - really barbaric.

My uncle by marriage, who is 70, did I suppose. He had servants growing up.