Country house theatres are indoor or covered performance stage theatres built within or in the grounds of a

country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...

. Examples include: *

Chatsworth House Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, north-east of Bakewell and west of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the House of Cavendish, Cavendish family sin ...

Theatre — created in 1896 by William Hemsley for the 8th Duke of Devonshire by converting the East Wing's Banqueting Room, seats about 200. * Stanford Hall (Loughborough) Theatre — built in 1936 by Cecil Aubrey Massey and Redding & Smith for Sir Julian Cahn, seats 350. *

Craig-y-Nos Castle Craig-y-nos Castle ( en, Rock of the Night), is a Scottish Baronial country house near Glyntawe in Powys, Wales. Built on parkland beside the River Tawe in the upper Swansea Valley, it is located on the southeastern edge of the Black Mountain. T ...

Patti Theatre — opened in 1891 for

Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...

, who had purchased the castle in 1878, it was modelled on the

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Dr ...

in London and

La Scala La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, and is the base of the Opera School Wales, seats 150. *

Capesthorne Hall Capesthorne Hall is a country house near the village of Siddington, Cheshire, England. The house and its private chapel were built in the early 18th century, replacing an earlier hall and chapel nearby. They were built to Neoclassical d ...

Theatre - opened in the 19th century

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

, seats 150. *

Glyndebourne Glyndebourne () is an English country house, the site of an opera house that, since 1934, has been the venue for the annual Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The house, located near Lewes in East Sussex, England, is thought to be about six hundr ...

House Theatre - built in 1992-4 and seating 1,200, replaced the original 1934 theatre built by the Christie family. *The Grange Festival auditorium at The Grange, Hampshire — converted during 1998-2003 within Cockerell's 1823-5

Greek revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

Conservatory in the form of an Ionic temple, seats 530. *Banks Fee Opera House,

Longborough Longborough is a village and civil parish north of the market town of Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire. The parish population taken at the 2011 census was 471. The village is about east of the A424, around west of the Fosse Way ( A429) ...

— built in about 1997 by Martin Graham by converting an old chicken barn, seats 500. *

Nevill Holt Nevill Holt is a hamlet and civil parish in the Harborough District of Leicestershire, England. It is situated about northeast of Market Harborough, northwest of Corby and lies close to the borders with Northamptonshire and Rutland. It is on ...

Hall

Theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

— built in the 2000s within the 17th century stable courtyard by

Carphone Warehouse The Carphone Warehouse Limited was a mobile phone retailer based in London, United Kingdom. In August 2014 the company became a subsidiary of Currys plc (previously named "Dixons Carphone"), which was formed by the merger of its former parent Ca ...

co-founder David Ross, seats 300. *

Buscot Park Buscot Park is a country house at Buscot near the town of Faringdon in Oxfordshire within the historic boundaries of Berkshire. It is a Grade II* listed building. It was built in an austere neoclassical style between 1780 and 1783 for Edward ...

Theatre — located in the Eastern Pavilion at the side of the main house, seats 64. *Pyrford Court Theatre — built in 1910, with the house, for the

Earl of Iveagh Earl of Iveagh (pronounced —especially in Dublin—or ) is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, created in 1919 for the businessman and philanthropist Edward Guinness, 1st Viscount Iveagh. He was the third son of Sir Benjamin Guin ...

. *

Plas Glynllifon Plas or Plass may refer to: People * Plas Johnson (born 1931), American saxophonist * Adrian Plass (born 1948), British author who writes primarily Christian humor * Gilbert Plass (1920–2004), Canadian-born physicist * Maria Plass (born 1953), ...

Theatre room - in the North wing, being restored in 2017. *

Kilworth House Kilworth House is a four star country house hotel, located west of North Kilworth, Leicestershire. History This grade II listed Italianate country house was built as a family home towards the end of the nineteenth century for John Entwisle, th ...

Theatre - an open-air theatre, seating 540, established in 2007 by the owner of Kilworth House Hotel, Lutterworth Road,

North Kilworth North Kilworth is a village and civil parish in the Harborough district, in south Leicestershire, England, north of South Kilworth. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 597. Largely bypassed by the A4304 road, the village con ...

Leicestershire. It was the first to be built in the grounds of a UK hotel with seating and stage covered by a sail like canopy and is dedicated to presenting large scale professional musical theatre and one night shows. *

Wormsley Park Wormsley is a private estate of Mark Getty and his family, set in of rolling countryside in the Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire (formerly Oxfordshire), England. It is also the home of Garsington Opera. Acquired by Sir Paul Getty in 1985, th ...

Garsington Opera Garsington Opera is an annual summer opera festival founded in 1989 by Leonard Ingrams. The Philharmonia Orchestra and The English Concert are its two resident orchestras. For 21 years it was held in the gardens of Ingrams's home at Garsington ...

(formerly at

Garsington Manor Garsington Manor, in the village of Garsington, near Oxford, England, is a country house, dating from the 17th century. Its fame derives principally from its owner in the early 20th century, the "legendary Ottoline Morrell, who held court from 19 ...

) — 600-seat pavilion assembled and dismantled each season. *

Holland House Holland House, originally known as Cope Castle, was an early Jacobean country house in Kensington, London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Holland Park Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...

Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

— 1,000 seats under a canopy installed in 1988, assembled and dismantled each season.

Sources

*Wilmore, David, "Curtain's Up, Your Grace", '' Country Life'', 22/29 December 2005, pp. 42-47. *The Culture Show, BBC TV, 9 March 2006, 8-minute segment on Chatsworth's theatre history and its reopening to the public later in 2006.

External links

Sources

See also

External links