GUNPOWDER, GARDENS and GHOST by MICHAEL HANSON

------- - ----------------------------------~-------------------------------------------- 104 COUNTRY LIFE--APRIL 2, 1987 THE ESTATE MARKET GUNPOWDER, GARDENS AND GHOST By MICHAEL HANSON (Left) 1-ASHBY ST LEDGERS, NEAR DAVENTRY, NOR THAMPTONSHIRE. The original stone hall added by Lutyens in 1909-10, seen here in a 1951 COUNTRY LIFE photograph, had a floor inserted in about 1968, and service rooms created at the lower level (Right) 2-THE UPPER LEVEL OF THE HALL TODAY. "The open timber roof now seems overwhelmingly heavy" and an upper dining room is superfluous N E of the most historic manor houses a brass to him and his wife in the chancel. In his fines imposed on him in 1601 for supporting in England, Ashby St Ledgers in will, made on the day he died, he instructed his the uprising of Robert, Earl of Essex, once O Northamptonshire, has just been wife to restore to its rightful owners all the land Elizabeth l's favourite, he was forced to sell placed on the market through the London he had wrongfully purchased, and divided the the Chastleton estate in Oxfordshire, which he office of Hampton and Sons. Not only does it rest of his property between their children. His had inherited from his grandmother in 1593. have links with the Gunpowder Plot, but it was estate was attainted by virtue of his treason, but Robert Catesby (whose wife had died at extensively altered and extended earlier this Henry VII reversed the attainder in favour of his Chastleton) moved to Ashby St Ledgers to live century by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who laid out the son George, and over the next century the with his widowed mother, whose husband had magnificent gardens (and once claimed that the family prospered. died in 1598. The plot to blow up Parliament in house had a ghost). William's uncle, Sir John Catesby, owned 1605 while the king, James I, was in the House Ash by St Ledgers itself is a medieval estate the manors of Lapworth, Warwickshire, and of Lords is said to have been hatched in a room village whose parish Church of the Blessed Whiston, Northamptonshire. When he died in over the gatehouse at Ashby by Catesby, John Virgin Mary and St Leodegarius is an unusual 1486, he is said to have been buried in the Wright and Thomas Winter. Guy Fawkes was dedication for an Anglican church. It may be "abbey of St James at Northampton" (presum later hired to carry out the atrocity. When the due to the adjacent manor house being owned ably the Roman Catholic church of St John the plot fai led, Catesby and other conspirators fled by the Catesbys, a family of Catholic recusants. Baptist, whose 15th-century figure of the saint to Ashby and then on to Holbeche House in Sir William Catesby, who died in 1470, is came from the church at Ashby St Ledgers). Staffordshire. Here, surrounded by Royalist commemorated in the floor of the chancel of the By the second half of the 16th century, the forces, they ignored calls to surrender, and church by a fragmentary brass. His son, also manor of Lapworth was owned by Sir William Catesby, Wright and Thomas Percy were shot William, became a favourite of Richard Ill, the Catesby, a descendant of the attainted William. in the subsequent fighting. Winter was hunchbacked usurper of the throne of England, This Sir William was a Roman Catholic executed later. who made him Chancellor of the Exchequer recusant, harassed for refusing to attend his Once again the Catesby estates were and Speaker of the House of Commons in 1484. parish church, who in 1585 compounded to pay attainted, though Ashby St Ledgers was not On August 22, 1485, William Catesby was one-fifth of his income to meet his fines. forfeited, because it had been settled on Robert's captured at the Battle of Bosworth, and three His son, Robert, who became implicated in mother. But in 1611 it was granted to one of days later he was beheaded at Leicester. His the gunpowder conspiracy, was also fined for James l's followers, Sir William lrwing, who body was buried at Ashby, where there is also recusancy and even imprisoned. To meet the sold it the following year to a London draper, 3-THE DINING ROOM CREATED BY LUTYENS IN 1904. It is now the kitchen, with a flat ceiling. The chimneypiece on the right has been removed and is now a door to a corridor; and the round-headed arch has been blocked in. (Right) 4---A VIEW FROM THE HOUSE, LOOKING OUT TOWARDS THE CHURCH. In a room in the black and white half-timbered gatehouse, the Gunpowder Plot was hatched COUNTRY LIFE-APRIL 2, 1987 105 5---THE FORECOURT. Ahead is the Jacobean house of the lansons, linked by the Lutyens range of 1904-38 on the left to the Tudor house of the Catesbys (not seen) Bryan Ianson, who died in 1634. His son, John The barrel-vaulted dining room that the Jacobean elm panelling, but have put in Ianson, built the main house in 1652. Lutyens created in 1904 was turned into a ghastly modern bathrooms. The farmland was In 1703 Ashby was sold to another draper, kitchen by the 1st Lord Wimborne, and given a resold in 1984 to Barkers, the local farmers and Joseph Ashley, whose family is commemorated flat ceiling. The elegant new dining room butchers. by a series of monuments in the church. In added by Lutyens in 1924 is now known as the In 1951 the house was approached from the 1903, Ashby St Ledgers was sold to Ivor Guest, office, but the arch connecting it to the old west end of the forecourt. Today it is reached who became the 1st Viscount Wimborne in dining room has been blocked up-though its more logically: from the south entrance beside 1918. At various times from 1904 until his enormous glass doors remain. The former the church. This requires visitors to pass the death in 1939, Lord Wimborne used Sir Edwin common room to the left of the main entrance entrance lodge (now occupied by the head Lutyens to enlarge and alter the house. It was is now a dining room, making the upper dining gardener) and the gatehouse, which is not used; Lutyens' longest association with a client room superfluous. the upstairs room in which the Gunpowder Plot longer even than his work on New Delhi The staff and guest rooms that Lutyens was hatched is now in poor repair. Nor is the and it ended with him designing Lord added in 1923 have all been swept away, along original Tudor house of the Catesbys occupied. Wimborne's memorial stone cross and with the north service range of 1904. As a Its ground-floor rooms are remarkably plain, sarcophagus in the churchyard. result, the first-floor gallery no longer connects but it has a fine staircase and some beautiful The manor house was described in with the half-timbered bridge that Lutyens decorative plasterwork in the upper rooms, all CouNTRY LIFE in 1951, and it has since been added in 1904 to link the Catesby house with in need of restoration. featured in numerous books on Lutyens. But the main Jacobean house of the Iansons. That leaves the original Jacobean house, to no one seems to be aware of the extensive In 1976, the 2nd Lord Wimborne sold the which Lutyens added a matching wing and his alterations that the 2nd Lord Wimborne made in whole 2,850-acre estate to the Airways Pension connecting range in 1904. A half-timbered 1967-68, before he sold the estate in 1976. S<;heme for about £2 million. In 1977, the Tudor house that Lord Wimborne brought These involved drastic changes to Lutyens' manor was resold with 33 acres to Mr and Mrs from Ipswich and had re-erected on the site in work, and even demolition, but there was no Ronald Billington. They have since made 1908 now contains a billiard-room with reference to this in the Lutyens exhibition at the various improvements, including installing bedrooms above. Hayward Gallery in 1981-82. efficient oil-fired central heating and cleaning For all its piecemeal development, Ashby It is not easy to understand a St Ledgers is not an unduly large description of the house until one house by today's standards. visits it, because it rambles around Situated just two miles from three sides of a courtyard and Junction 16 of the M1, London can includes buildings of so many be reached in H hours. The 33 periods. To make matters worse, acres of gardens and grounds are the interior alterations have among the finest of their kind, changed the function of some having been designed by Lutyens. rooms, so that references to He created a lawn bounded by a old plans or photographs are balustrated wall on the east front, confusing. with steps descending to a parterre The most fundamental with yew hedges and sunken canal change, and hardly one that any leading to a large fishpond. He admirer ofLutyens can consider to also designed a rustic bridge over a be an improvement, is the inser stream. tion of a floor in the two-storey Hamptons are seeking offers stone hall of 1909-10. Not only of £2 million for the house and 33 has this produced an upper dining acres. The contents, which are room whose open timber roof now available at a valuation, would cost seems overwhelmingly heavy, but about another £1 million. And the the lower half of the hall has ghost? In his 1951 CoUNTRY LIFE been turned into a set of mundane articles, Christopher Hussey said service rooms.

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