Get your English manor Wallpaper.The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often in the ownership of an individual who also owned a London house allowing time to be spent in the country and in the city – hence, for these people, the term was to distinguish between town and country. However, the term also encompasses those houses which were, and often still are, the full time residence for the landed gentry. These people were central to the squirearchy which ruled rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832.[1] Frequently the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses.