THE great cedar that stands to one side of Canons Ashby, home of the Dryden family for nearly 500 years, is the last of six that were planted in 1780. Luckily, this one was well placed, but another, planted much too close by, died and four others were squeezed in on either side of the central flight of steps leading down from the top terrace. Photographs from the 1880s show that these hid much of the house and anyone standing on the doorstep would find branches obscuring the most dramatic view the garden offers.
This leads down three grassed terraces towards a fine pair of Baroque gates and along what, in the 1880s, was a double avenue of elms, 840 yards long, that extended across two fields to the far horizon. It’s not only the magnificence of the view that stops the visitor, but the knowledge that people have stood and enjoyed it from this same spot since at least 1709, when the formal garden was laid out by the then owner Edward Dryden.
Perhaps, they stood here much longer ago, too, as there has been a habitation here from Roman and Saxon times. In 1086, the village of Essebi was established, followed by the founding of a priory of Augustine canons in the reign of Henry II (1133–89).
Photographs published in COUNTRY LIFE in 1921 show the top flight of steps severely buckled by the roots of the encroaching cedars. By the 1950s, when Canons Ashby was first offered to the National Trust, the roots were undermining the terrace and had to go. On that occasion, the Trust declined the offer, but the Dryden family approached it again later and, in 1981, when the building was almost at the point of collapse, the transfer finally went ahead.
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Denne historien er fra January 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
