Medieval secrets, new ideas

Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire One of Britain’s earliest post-medieval gardens has been sensitively and authentically restored, yet modernised at the same time. Tiffany Daneff finds the fusion of old and new succeeds on all levels

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.