A new movie version of "Pride and Prejudice" again displays that greatest of scene stealers, the English country estate. Nick Trend traces the roots of a raft of masterpieces—literary and cinematic—to spectacular houses in the shires. And all are open to visitors

Imagine that you're driving an English country road as it winds a serpentine course dictated by centuries-old boundaries of landownership, and you see that one of these boundaries is the ivy-laced brick wall of an estate that goes on for miles. Look for a break in the wall—it is usually framed by symmetrical gatehouses. Head right in following the sweeping curves of the drive, and meander through acres of arcadian parkland. In the middle distance, a herd of deer arch their necks to feast elegantly on the lower leaves of a stand of oak trees that might be hundreds of years old. Beyond them, you catch a glimpse of a stone obelisk or the broken span of a weed-invaded folly. Then, around the final bend, you see it. The mellow stone reflected in the still waters of the lake; the cricket pitch laid out on the formal lawn; a statue of Hercules on a parapet, his club raised dramatically above his head.

In truth, this is not one estate but an amalgam based on many that defines, in all particulars, an English stately home—you almost expect Mr. Darcy to come striding out the double front door in his riding boots to survey his domain, haughtiness personified. And, in a fusing of art and reality, this is exactly what you will see in the newest iteration of that parable of the love-riven heart and of opulently appointed acres, Pride and Prejudice. Director Joe Wright has located Darcy's house Pemberley at Chatsworth, the neoclassical seat of the dukes of Devonshire.

The magnificence of Chatsworth is inescapable at first sight, whether in film or in real life. But its importance in the canon of aristocratic English taste—along with many other homes that grace the countryside—is more substantial than you might imagine. Back in 1950, Lord Gowers, who had been asked by the British government to oversee the preservation of landmark properties, said that these estates are "the greatest contribution made by England to the visual arts…an association of beauty, of art and of nature which…has seldom, if ever, been equaled in the history of civilization."

Chatsworth, it has to be said, is exceptional in its scale and ambition: The main house alone has 297 rooms, the formal gardens cover a hundred acres, and the landscaped park is ten times larger than that. But size isn't everything. Much of the appeal of visiting English country houses is in their huge variety of scale and achievement. Take a tour of the countryside and you'll find redbrick Tudor and Jacobean piles with spiral chimneys and intimate, intricate knot gardens; extravagant Baroque showpieces; the Gothic crenelated mansions of the Victorians; the more understated vernacular of the Edwardian Arts and Crafts movement. But if the styles differ, the concept is the same: a spectacular architectural work set among formal gardens and, as often as not, amid a grand, sweeping landscape.

These really are the treasure houses of England, enduring symbols of the former power of the aristocracy. Many also have historical significance as the birthplaces of kings and queens or as storehouses for great art. In their sculpture galleries, you'll find Roman busts and rare Hellenistic torsos, and on the walls, masterpieces by Titian, Canaletto, Rubens, and Rembrandt. Kingston Lacey, in Dorset, for example, has an original heavily gilded ceiling circa 1600, taken complete from the Palazzo Contarini degli Scrigni in Venice, as well as an important collection of Egyptian artifacts. Among other treasures, Petworth House, in Sussex, has many paintings by the greatest of British nineteenth-century artists, J.M.W. Turner, who used to visit often. Only recently, the Duke of Northumberland learned that the small Madonna hanging neglected on a wall in his family pile, Alnwick Castle, was by Raphael. He sold it to the National Gallery in London for forty million dollars, which should certainly help to keep the old place in good repair for some time to come. Not all the art, though, is by Old Masters. Chatsworth has an important collection of paintings by Lucian Freud, known for his starkly unforgiving nudes as well as portraits of brutal candor.