Castle Ashby, Northampton, England

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

Formal gardens, probably by W B Thomas, with lavish use of terracotta work of 1862, adjoining a country house, set within a landscape park improved by Lancelot Brown in the 1760s.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The estate village of Castle Ashby lies 10 kilometres east of Northampton, 2 kilometres north of the A428 from the county town to Bedford. The Castle and its gardens stand in their own grounds 300 metres to the south-east, embracing the parish church. Yardley Chase and Chase Park begin 3 kilometres to the south, beyond the A428. The Castle and the Chase are connected by the Grand Avenue south from the house. The area here registered is roughly 400 hectares.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

J Morton, The Natural History of Northants (1712), pp 492-3

Country Life, 3 (8 January 1898), pp 16-19; (15 January 1898), pp 48-50; 16 (5 November 1904), pp 666-76; (12 November 1904), pp 702-11; 60 (18 September 1926), pp 422-31; 189 (30 January 1986), pp 248-53; (6 February 1986), pp 310-15

W B Compton, History of Comptons of Compton Wynyates (1930)

The Victoria History of the County of Northamptonshire 4, (1937), pp 230-3

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), pp 107-9

Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England Inventories: Northamptonshire 2, (1979), pp 16-18

M Binney and A Hills, Elysian Gardens (1979), p 15

R Melville, Castle Ashby, (report 1979)

R Turner, Capability Brown and the Eighteenth-Century English Landscape (1985), pp 63, 71, 112-14

D Stuart, The Garden Triumphant (1988), pp 21-2

J Heward and R Taylor, The Country Houses of Northamptonshire, (RCHM(E) 1996), pp 129-39

B A Bailey (editor), Northamptonshire in the Early Eighteenth Century: The Drawings of Peter Tillemans and Others, Northants Record Soc 39, (1996), p 37

Follies, (Autumn 1997), p 7

Castle Ashby, (Rodney Melville Associates 1998)

P McKay, Lecture notes on 19th-century works, and exhibition catalogue about work in 1760s (no date) (estate office)

Maps

Map, 1760 [reproduced in Compton 1930]

L Brown, A Plan for the Intended Alterations at Castle Ashby (private collection)

R Adam, Grand Design '...showing the manner of laying out the Pleasure Ground, Kitchen Garden and Small Park for Deer...' (private collection)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1887; 2nd edition published 1901

Archival items

The Castle Ashby archives are held in a private collection.
 

Description written: 1998

Edited: January 2000