Northamptonshire Country Houses

Northamptonshire, known as the ‘County of the Spires and Squires’, offers a wealth of fine stately homes nestled amongst charming, gently rolling countryside in the heart of England. The county is notable for containing more privately owned historical houses than any other, several of which we will visit on our tour.

Drayton House, home of the Stopford-Sackville family, has evolved gradually over the centuries and boasts a magnificent Baroque frontispiece by the architect William Talman, while Holdenby House has a fascinating royal history. Originally built as a palace by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor and favourite of Elizabeth I in 1583, it also served as prison to Charles I following his crushing military defeat at the nearby Battle of Naseby. The house contains a beautiful range of paintings and is surrounded by 20 acres of exquisite gardens.

Lamport Hall shows how an enlightened patron could remodel his house during the difficult years of the Commonwealth and adorn it with paintings, which remain in the house to this day. Boughton House, the former seat of the Dukes of Montagu, is a French-style chateau with an extraordinary collection of artistic treasures, whilst Kirby Hall is a magnificent Renaissance ruin.

Northamptonshire has traditionally been a popular place in which the privileged have indulged their passion for country sports, and this is nowhere more evident than at the idyllic Cottesbrooke Hall, set in stunning 18th century gardens. Rumoured to be the model for Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, this splendid Queen Anne house boasts arguably one of the finest collections of sporting art in Europe.

Lyveden New Bield and the Triangular Lodge at Rushton parade the beliefs of a Roman Catholic, whose faith was regarded as treason in late Elizabethan England.

The houses will be complemented with a selection of visits to estate churches, containing fascinating family memorials.

We will stay at the magnificent four-star Rushton Hall Hotel & Spa, located close to Kettering. This Grade I-listed Victorian mansion is a former preparatory school whose architecture was influenced by nearby Kirby Hall, and our Tour Director will introduce us to its considerable historical interest.

This tour will be led by Adam White, PhD, an art historian and museum curator who is an expert in country house collections and one of Britain’s leading authorities on English sculpture of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. He originally studied French and Philosophy at Oxford University before gaining a PhD in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Adam has held the role of Hon Curator of Collections at Lotherton Hall in Yorkshire.