Boughton House, Kettering, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

Extensive remains of formal gardens dating back to the late 17th and early 18th centuries around a country house rebuilt at the same time, set in a park developed from a late medieval deer park. Beyond the park are avenues and rides, also part of the landscape of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Boughton House stands in its park in a slight hollow on the east side of the shallow valley of the River Ise, two kilometres north-east of the attractive estate village of Weekley. Passing through that village, and forming the west boundary of the park, is the A43 from Kettering, about five kilometres to the south-west, to Corby and Stamford. The area here registered includes the formal gardens around the House and the parkland to west (to the A43), east (to the Geddington to Grafton Underwood road) and north (to the 18th-century park wall 650 metres north of the House), as well as woodlands and avenues which form or formed parts of the surrounding designed landscape. The area here registered is roughly 600 hectares.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

J Morton, The Natural History of Northants (1712), p 491

Country Life, 25 (30 January 1909), pp 162-70; (6 February 1909), pp 198-205; 72 (26 November 1932), pp 596-601; 149 (25 February 1971), pp 420-3; (4 March 1971), pp 476-80; (11 March 1971), pp 536-9

Northamptonshire Past & Present 5, (1977), pp 402-5

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England Inventories: Northamptonshire 2, (1979), pp 154-64

J Anthony, The Gardens of Britain 6, (1979), pp 30-5

C Taylor, The Archaeology of Gardens (1983), pp 19, 48-51, 54-5, 64

T Murdoch, The English Versailles (1992)

J Heward and R Taylor, The Country Houses of Northamptonshire, (RCHM(E) 1996), pp 94-109

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1888-90; 2nd edition published 1900-1

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1900; 1926 edition

Archival items [reproduced in Northants Past & Present 5, 1977]

Estate map, 1715 (map 1382), (Northants Record Office)

Estate map, 1810 (map 5965), (Northants Record Office)
 

Description written: March 1998

Edited: January 2000