Belton House in South Kesteven

You're standing at Belton House, a country house just outside Grantham in Lincolnshire. Take a good look at the front. Does it seem familiar? According to architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stops, this very façade inspired the British motorway signs that point you to stately homes. It's often called the textbook English country house: two storeys over a semi-basement, laid out in an H shape, with a triangular pediment in the middle.