154 



GARDENS OLD AND NEW. 



founded at Canons Ashby for Black Canons of the 

 Order of St. Augustine, and dedicated to the Blessed 

 Virgin Mary, the earliest known benefactor of the 

 Priory being Stephen de Ley in the reign of 

 Henry II. (1154-89). The Priory was suppressed 

 in 1536, and the Priory lands were granted, in 1537, 

 to Sir F. Bryan, and in 1538 alienated to John 

 Cope, who was afterwards knighted. He adapted 

 the monastic buildings as a lay residence, but the 

 family afterwards went to Bramshill and the Priory 

 was sold by Thomas Cope, in 1665, to Gerrard 

 Usher, and in the same year was conveyed to 

 Sir Robert Dryden, in which family it has ever 

 since remained ; but they pulled down the monastic 

 buildings, and used some of the material for the 

 alterations of their house in the Queen Anne period. 

 John Dryden, or Dreyden, as the name was then 



windows and its Tudor doorways, the beauty of 

 which is much enhanced by the rich brown colour of 

 the stone, and that mellow look which has been well 

 described as having "the subtle fragrance of decay." 



There is good wood and plaster work in the 

 interior of Jacobean type, though much of it dates 

 from Charles I.'s reign, being the work of Sir John 

 Dryden between 1632 and 1658. The date of the 

 delightful terraced gardens is uncertain. They show 

 much evidence of belonging to the Queen Anne 

 period of activity, and may wholly belong to that 

 date. But garden-making on a modest scale was 

 fashionable in the early part of the seventeenth 

 century, when Sir John was embellishing the house, 

 and portions of the garden ornaments are of pre- 

 Restoration style. The openwork and obelisked 

 fimals of some of the forecourt piers remind us of 



'I HE END OF THE SOUTH WALK. 



written, married the daughter of his then neighbour, 

 Sir John Cope of Canons Ashby, and their son, 

 Erasmus Dryden, who was created a baronet in 1619, 

 was the grandfather of the poet, " Glorious John." 

 This baronetcy terminated with Sir John Dryden who 

 died in 1770, and the mansion and estate descended 

 to his niece, Elizabeth Dryden, whose husband, John 

 Turner, took the name and arms of Dryden, and 

 was created a baronet in 1795. The earliest part of 

 the present house is the tower, which was " the 

 inheritance " of the John Dryden of Cumberland 

 who afterwards married a Miss Cope from the 

 Priory. To this tower he added the hall, the 

 old doorways of which bear the arms of Dryden 

 and Cope, and were built between his marriage 

 in 1551 and his death in 1584. The house 

 encloses a quadrangle, which, although small (52ft. by 

 37ft.), is very picturesque, with its tall, mullioned 



the like work in the Gayhurst gardens (page 169), 

 probably carried out by Sir Kenelm Digby after his 

 marriage in 1625. Moreover, the Canons Ashby 

 examples are of the same school of design as the 

 great pendant of Sir John's fine plaster ceiling in the 

 drawing-room. On the other hand, there are also 

 piers terminating with achievements of armour in 

 the French Louis XIV. style and telling of the 

 great alterations to the house which were made 

 in 1708-10, when, unfortunately, many of the 

 mullioned windows were stopped up, others taken 

 out, and sash-windows inserted, especially along the 

 whole of the garden front. Undoubtedly, therefore, 

 at this time great alterations were made in the 

 gardens ; additional gateway pillars and stone walls 

 were erected, and many of the avenues and clumps 

 of trees planted. Not till late in the eighteenth 

 century, however, were set the noble cedars, which 



