CASTLE ASHBY, 



NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 



C\-| I I \-IIir. is a vast place "in all 

 dimensions." It IN .iK'i l>eautiful and 

 impressive. But its si/e and the sustained 

 -c of spa.e conveyed not unly by the 

 building, hut by every part of the great domain 

 surrounding it, are the tir-t Jear impressions that 

 strike the visitor. Often in a flat and open country 

 some site, which would not IK- remarked tor height 

 or he especially commanding elsewhere, dominates a 

 great area of Country, and seems made and intended 

 \ature tor a castle or a palace, or, [H-rhaps, for the 

 foun i.-.tion of some great city. Belvoir is an example 

 of the former in the Northern Midlands, Castle Ashhy 

 lounterpart in the Suit hern. The valley of the 

 N'enc, with its quiet river winding through wide, 

 green meadows and between low, long slopes ot 

 fertile lands, passes the castle at no great distance 

 belnw Northampton, on its way to Omullc, and to the 

 aisles and towers of I'eterlxirough, and thence to the 



fen and the shallow Kastern Sea. It is a fertile, 

 quietly beautiful country, as much the "home "t 

 ancient peaie"as any m Kngland. Not far off is 

 I- 1 ton, whciue Franklin sprang, and further down 

 the valley is l.ilford Mall, one of the most ambitious 

 of the Tudor-Italian houses of John of I'adua, but 

 better known to many reader- a- the home of that 

 exiellent naturalist and most kindly of men the late 

 Lord l.ilford, whose cables, kites and iranes are still 

 preserved there in Comfortable i.iptivity. But at 

 Castle Ashby, the sides of this broad and shallow 

 valley run into something approaching to steepness, 

 until, in the centre of an immense park, and ringed 

 by .1 chain of narrow winding lakes and pools, a green 

 i-M.irpment apjxrars like a natural terraie, on which 

 rises the long tacade (one side <>f a great parallelogram) 

 of the north front of Castle Ashln . 



The house is built of a singularly pleasing, warm, 

 yellowish stone, growing only more warm and 



THE 



TERRACE 



