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Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain under the microscope.欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜。

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

Hi everyone. You sound a bit nasal.

I've got a little bit of a cold.

Okay. I suppose it adds a different type of charm.

Yeah. And it's a good thing. It's audio, I don't look that great at the moment.

All right. So, chitchat aside, let us get into today's topic. You know, when a lot of Chinese people when they think about British or English drama就很多人看英剧的时候, I think they start with, you know, what you call it? Big houses, servants, lords, ladies…

Yeah. Kind of like sort of period drama.

对, 你们管那个叫period drama, 有点时代剧那个意思。
So for example when I was watching Downtown Abbey.

Yes.

唐顿庄园. And also some episodes of Miss Marple like Agatha Christie's, 阿婆的一些都是这种大庄园里面。

Yes. So it’s that time, it's the early 20th century. It's the era of the manor house.

I thought today let's focus on that. What did you say? You called them Manor houses.

Well. There's lots of different names for them. You can call the manor houses, country houses or stately homes.

Manor is m-a-n-o-r.

Yeah.

What does that mean “Manor”?

Well. The manor was basically the big house and the land around it.

就是一个像庄园这种感觉。对吧

Yeah. So, we would still say, for example, the lord or lady of the manor.

By the way, statistically and realistically, how many British people still live or still own that type of manor houses?

Very very very very few.

It's not just, I mean just being rich, is not enough, is it?

No.

据我所知, 他好像是要有什么原来的那种贵族aristocrats。

Well. You get some rich people that they do buy these big houses, they probably don't own much of the land around them. But the thing is - incredibly expensive to keep. And normally if you're looking at more of a traditional manor house, it comes with a lot of responsibilities.

Responsibilities? I thought that's just a private home, you just take care of it like we do to our houses or flats.

No, traditionally being the lord of the manor means that you have very close ties to the village, because the land is so big or it was so big that they would have its own little industries, it would have its own farms. And, it comes with a lot of responsibilities for the villagers, the people who live nearby.

Oh, that's why. I'm sure a lot of you when you are watching TV shows like Downtown Abbey think about Lord Grantham.