Holdenby House

Holdenby House is a historic country house in Northamptonshire, traditionally pronounced and sometimes spelt Holmby. The house is situated in the parish of Holdenby, six miles northwest of Northampton and close to Althorp.

The house is a private residence, though the gardens are open to the public and include a falconry centre. The interior of the mansion is opened to the public for a few days of the year.

History

The house was completed 1583 by the Elizabethan Lord chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton. Following the great house's completion Hatton refused to sleep a night in the mansion until Queen Elizabeth I had slept there. Hatton's new house was in fact one of the largest palaces of the Tudor period, rivalling in size both Audley End and Theobalds and was reputed to be approximately 78,750 square feet (7,300 m²), although this probably included the two great courtyards around which it was built. The facades were symmetrical, with mullioned windows and open Doric arcades thus reflecting the arrival of the new renaissance style of architecture gradually spreading from Italy. The cost of building Holdenby financially ruined Hatton who died shortly after. [cite web|url=http://www.holdenby.com/rpmServer/generatorSystem/asp/rpmServer_GoGenerate.asp?intSiteID=15&intPageID=24| title=The history|publisher=Holdenby House]

In 1607 the mansion was bought by Elizabeth's successor James I, as a replacement for Theobalds, the country palace he had sold earlier that year. In February 1647 James I's son Charles I was brought to Holdenby by the Scots and handed over to Parliament. He remained a prisoner there until removed by the army in June 1647. Parliament sold the property to Captain Adam Baynes who demolished the house almost entirely except for a small domestic wing.

Holdenby later in 1709 was bought by the Marlborough family, who in turn sold it to their kinsmen the Clifden Family whose descendants in the female line, the Lowthers, still own the property. The Clifdens in two stages between 1873 - 5 and 188 - 8 built a new house incorporating the remains of the older mansion. The new house in the style of the older is approximately one eighth the size of its predecessor and was designed by the architect Richard Carpenter.

Today all that remains of Hatton's great house are two archways and the kitchen wing incorporated into the Victorian rebuild, now standing on a lawn, which once gave access to the courtyards; a near identical third arch bears the date 1659 so was thus erected by Baynes the Cromwellian owner.

References

External links

* [http://www.holdenby.com/ Holdenby House]