- Canons Ashby House
Canons Ashby House is an
Elizabethan manor house located inCanons Ashby , Daventry,Northamptonshire ,England . It is mainly owned by the National Trust although "The Tower" is in the care of theLandmark Trust .It has been the home of the Dryden family since its construction in the
16th century . Themanor house was built in approximately1550 with additions in the1590s , in the1630s and1710 ; it has remained essentially unchanged since the1710s .John Dryden had married Elizabeth Cope in 1551 and inherited, through his wife, a L-shaped farmhouse which he gradually extended. In the 1590s his son, Sir Erasmus Dryden completed the final north range of the house which enclosed the Pebble Courtyard.
The interior of the house is noted for its Elizabethan wall paintings and its Jacobean plasterwork.
The house sits in the midst of a formal garden with colourful
herbaceous border s, anorchard featuring varieties of fruit trees from the 16th century, terraces, walls and gate piers from 1710. There is also the remains of a medieval priory church (from which the house gets its name).Gervase Jackson-Stops , who was the Architectural Adviser to the National Trust for over twenty years, broke fresh ground when he fought for the rescue of the then decaying manor-house. This was the first time that the Trust used government funds rather than the traditional family endowment to save an historic house.;Louis Osman (1914-1996)Architect and accomplished British goldsmith Louis Osman lived at Canons Ashby from 1969/70 to 1979. While living there, Osman made the crown--with his enamelist wife, Dilys Roberts--used at the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. They also made the gold enameled casket that held the Magna Carta, on view in the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. in 1976.
External links
* [http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-canonsashbyhouse/ Canons Ashby House information at the National Trust]
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