Deene Park

Deene Park from the south-east

Deene Park, the seat of the Brudenell family since 1514,^[1] is a country manor located 5 miles north-east of Corby in the county of Northamptonshire, England. The manor of Deene belonged to Westminster Abbey; annual rent of £18 was paid until 1970.^[2] The manor house has been expanded around its courtyard from its sixteenth-century core, represented by its great hall, which was given its screen panelling and fireplace in 1571.^[3] The early 19th-century Bow Room contains the Brudenell library, collected in the 16th century by Sir Thomas Tresham and his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Brudenell, 1st Earl of Cardigan, though no longer the manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales^[4] or the last copy of Magna Carta in private hands.^[5] Seven of the Brudenell family were Earls of Cardigan — the most notable being the 7th Earl who led the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava (1854); with the merging of the title with the Marquessate of Ailesbury, the estate has descended to Mr Edmund Brudenell.

The house contains furnishings of different periods and portraits, including works by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. The large gardens designed by David Hicks feature a parterre overlooking the lake, and a newly-planted avenue.

The manor is located in the countryside not far from the Harringworth Viaduct and is surrounded by historic villages and hamlets. St Peter's Church, Deene, in the grounds, has the funeral monuments of the Brudenells.

Throughout the 1990s, Deene Park hosted the annual August bank holiday Greenbelt Festival.

Notes

1. ^ Deene was purchased by Chief Justice Sir Robert Brudenell; the earlier history of the Manor of Deene in Corby Hundred is traced in John Bridges, History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, II; the family's history is traced, based on the abundant Brudenell archives, by Joan Wake, The Brudenells of Deene, 1953.
2. ^ Deene Park Website
3. ^ the armorial fireplace, "executed in an up-to-date style of French origin", is illustrated in Nicholas Cooper, Houses of the Gentry 1480-1680 1999:267.
4. ^ Clara Marburg, "Notes on the Cardigan Chaucer Manuscript" PMLA, 41.2 (June 1926:229-251); the ms was sold Sotheby's 7 April 1925, and now at the University of Texas
5. ^ Sotheby's sale catalogue, December 2007

External links

• Deene Park Website

Coordinates: 52°31′26″N 0°36′04″W / 52.524°N 0.601°W / 52.524; -0.601