Castle Ashby House

Castle Ashby House stands in Northamptonshire as a Grade I listed country house and one of the seats of the Marquess of Northampton. Its setting includes a church, formal gardens and a landscaped park, all part of the same Grade I listing. The original manor house received a licence to castellate in 1306 from Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. By the late 16th century it had become an Elizabethan prodigy house with a Palladian front courtyard added in the 18th century. The house’s Elizabethan rebuilding began in 1574 under Henry Compton, first Baron Compton, and continued by his son William, created Earl of Northampton. Queen Elizabeth I visited in 1600, and King James and his Queen stayed in 1605 when the household employed 83 servants plus chaplains, musicians and the Gardener of Ashby. A stone parapet dated 1624 bears a Latin inscription from Psalm 127 about building and keeping a house. Capability Brown later reshaped the gardens, enlarged the ponds into ornamental lakes and introduced a ha-ha around the park. Visitors find a long drive almost six and a half kilometres long leading to the house. The estate grounds include cricket pitches in front of the castle and remain open to the public even though the house itself is not. Two garden features, the Menagerie from the 1760s and the Terrace Gardens built between 1864 and 1866, are separately Grade II* listed. The grounds have hosted events such as Greenbelt festival and concerts by Sir Elton John.