Uffington House, Stamford
                                                                                                                                                                      Country Life, Dec. 31, 1904

Montague Peregrine Albermarle Bertie, 12th Earl of Lindsey, succeeded his father and inherited Uffington House, the ancestral home, in 1899.  His aunt, Lady Charlotte Guest, (1812-1895) who may have had a brief flirtation with Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli but who is perhaps more famous for her translation of the Welsh medieval epic the Mabinogion had been born here.  Country Life was granted permission in 1904 to photograph the interiors of the house when fire forestalled arrangements. 

"Lord Lindsey, who had just arrived from London, made energetic efforts to save his house, and he and Lady Lindsey directed the measures for removing to the lawn a great many of the valuables," including family portraits, the library, and much of the furniture.  Considered one of the "most noble" of the mansions of Lincolnshire and Rutland, the magazine expressed "the universal hope" that Lord Lindsey would rebuild.  He did not, however.  In 1938, the Earldom passed to a distant cousin the 8th Earl of Abingdon while the Irish titles of Baron and Viscount Cullen, which the 12th Earl had never claimed, became extinct. [Source].

I have no doubt many of you will find England's Lost Country Houses worthy, as I have, of more than one absorbing visit, with sufficient material therein for hours of contemplation -- as many as 2000 structures according to the site, and counting, and that figure does not include those noble mansions and estates converted to other uses.  As you know, there is nothing quite like a grainy Victorian or Edwardian photograph of some magnificent (as well as unfashionable or awful) structure to stir the imagination.  What remains today? you ask yourself. What was the original builder thinking?  What went through the mind of the man who inherited this imposing property, or that ancestral home, a Palladian beauty, a faux-Tudor pile, or a sprawling mixture of both?  Did he see his heirs frolicking in the extensive gardens or gamboling on the expansive lawn one fine future golden afternoon? Did he say to himself, "This I will pass on to my eldest son; this is what will remain.  This is what will be here when I am gone"?    

As far as I have been able to determine, there is nothing where Uffington House once stood, besides some subsidiary structures. If you can check and let me know, however, I would be grateful.  In any case, of course, nothing is preferable to a lot of things.