Estate

 

An estate comprises the houses and outbuildings and supporting farmland and woods that surround the gardens and grounds of a very large property, such as a country house or mansion. It is the modern term for a manor, but lacks the latter's now abolished jurisdictional authority. It is an "estate" because the profits from its produce and rents are sufficient to support the household in the house at its center, formerly known as the manor house. Thus "the estate" may refer to all other cottages and villages in the same ownership as the mansion itself, covering more than one former manor. An example of such great estates are Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, England, and Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire built to replace the former manor house of Woodstock.
"Estate", with its "stately home" connotations, has been a natural candidate for inflationary usage during the 20th century. An estate properly so-called should comprise several farms, and is not well used to describe a single farm.