Cottesbrooke Hall and the Cottesbrooke estate in

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, England is a Grade I listed country house and estate.

Location

The Hall and estate are approx. north of the town of

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

along the

A5199 road The A5199 road is the direct road from Northampton to Leicester in England. It was formerly part of the A50 trunk road that ran from Bedfordshire to Lancashire. For most of its length it is known as the Welford Road, except for small stretch ...

just 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the village of

Creaton Creaton is a village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England. Location The village is north-west of the town of Northampton and south-east of the city of Leicester, along the A5199, formerly designated as the A50 trunk road. Th ...

. The village of

Cottesbrooke Cottesbrooke is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in West Northamptonshire in England. At the time of the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census, the parish's population was 144 people, falling marginally to 143 at the 2011 ...

is adjacent to the estate.

Hall and estate

The Hall is a near-perfect example of Queen Anne architecture located in a large parkland setting with wide views across the local countryside. It is constructed in brick with ashlar dressings and lead and slate roofs with a 7-window frontage. The building was begun in 1702 and finished in 1713 by Sir John Langham and remains today largely unaltered, although some extensions were later carried out by Robert Mitchell c1770-95. It is home to the

Woolavington Woolavington is a village and civil parish on the Somerset Levels in the English county of Somerset. It forms part of the District of Sedgemoor, and is north east of Bridgwater, south east of Burnham on Sea and west of Glastonbury. At the ...

Collection, one of the most extensive collections of sporting paintings in the world. The Hall is set in the 18th century landscaped Cottesbrooke Park, and has fine furniture, the interior decoration, grounds and gardens. It was winner of the

Historic Houses Association Historic Houses (formerly, and still for legal purposes, known as the Historic Houses Association or HHA) is a not-for-profit organisation that represents more than 1,650 privately owned historic country houses, castles and gardens throughout th ...

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

'' 'Garden of the Year' '' Award in 2000. The building and grounds are open to the public from May to September only. The times are very limited and visitors should book in advance if requiring tours of the house. The best access route to the main visitor entrance is via the signposted turn east off the A5199 at Creaton.

History

The Cottesbrooke estate was purchased in 1635 by

Sir John Langham, 1st Baronet Sir John Langham, 1st Baronet (20 April 1584 – 16 May 1671) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons of England, House of Commons in 1654 and 1660. He was the eldest son of Edward Langham of Guilsborough, Northamptonshire, who ...

, a rich London merchant and MP. It descended in the Langham family to the 4th Baronet, who in 1702 began the building of the present hall. Sir James Langham, 7th Baronet was

High Sheriff of Northamptonshire This is a list of the High Sheriffs of Northamptonshire. The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the respon ...

for 1767 and MP for

from 1784 to 1790. Sir James, the 11th baronet, had mental disabilities and the estate was managed by Sir Herbert Langham, his brother and eventual successor. In 1877 the Hall was let for several months to the

Empress Elisabeth of Austria Duchess Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie in Bavaria (24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898) was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. Elisabeth was ...

as a base for a hunting holiday. In 1911 financial pressures forced the family to sell the estate to Captain

Robert Bingham Brassey Captain Robert Bingham Brassey (18 October 1875 – 14 November 1946) was a British Conservative Party politician. He was the son of Albert Brassey, MP. He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Banbury in the general election of January ...

, MP and move to County Fermanagh. Since 1937 Cottesbrooke has been the home of the MacDonald-Buchanan family. In 1937-8 they employed Lord Gerald Wellesley (later the 7th Duke of Wellington) to make alterations to the Hall, including changing the entrance front to the other side of the house. Cottesbrooke Hall is thought to have been the inspiration for Mansfield Park, the country estate of Sir Thomas Bertram in Jane Austen's 1814 novel Mansfield Park.

Gardens

The gardens today are entirely 20th century. The architect

Robert Weir Schultz Robert Weir Schultz (26 July 1860 – 29 April 1951), later Robert Weir Schultz Weir and known as R. W. S. Weir, was a Scottish Arts and Crafts architect, artist, landscape designer and furniture designer. He did much work on the Isle of Bute ...

, 1860–1951, designed a sunken courtyard garden with a pool and pergola, and a long paved terrace walk between mixed borders and overshadowed by old Lebanon cedars. A pair of 18th century gates lead to pleached

limes Limes may refer to: * the plural form of lime (disambiguation) * the Latin word for ''limit'' which refers to: ** Limes (Roman Empire) (Latin, singular; plural: ) is a modern term used primarily for the Germanic border defence or delimiting ...

and a statue of a gladiator. A statue walk with yew hedges has four fine statues by Peter Scheemakers originally in the Temple of Ancient Virtue at

Stowe Stowe may refer to: Places United Kingdom *Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a civil parish and former village **Stowe House **Stowe School * Stowe, Cornwall, in Kilkhampton parish * Stowe, Herefordshire, in the List of places in Herefordshire * Stowe, Linc ...

and bought in 1938. South of the house, which was originally the entrance façade, a new garden surrounded by wrought-iron railings was laid out in 1937 by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe in the form of a quadripartite

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

, with

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

shapes of common and golden yew disposed among lead statues, beds of ‘Iceberg’ roses, and tubs of agapanthus.

References

External links