Scheduled Monument: Kirby Hall; An Elizabethan Country House and Gardens and The Remains of The Medieval Village of Kirby (1014421)

DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT Erected late C16th by Sir Humphrey Stafford (architect John Thorp), sold in 1575 to Sir Christopher Hatton who employed Inigo Jones to re-model and improve it. {SAM 12} The monument includes Kirby Hall, an Elizabethan country house built in 1570-75 for Sir Humphrey Stafford. After his death in 1575 it was bought by Sir Christopher Hatton, later Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth, who made a number of additions including an elaborate suite of state apartments. Four royal visits were made to Kirby Hall between 1605 and 1619. In the first half of the 17th century Christopher Hatton III made further alterations to the house and established a formal garden which was redesigned and enlarged in the late 17th century by Christopher Hatton IV. After his death in 1706 the house was abandoned by his heirs and began to fall into disrepair; it was partly reoccupied and refurbished by the Finch-Hattons at the end of the 18th century but by the mid-19th century was again abandoned and thereafter fell into ruin. In 1930 it passed into state guardianship and is now maintained by English Heritage as a site open to the public. The monument includes the standing remains (both ruined and roofed) of the hall, a Grade I listed building, the buried remains of associated service buildings and the earthwork and buried remains of the formal gardens. The gardens are included in the Register of Gardens, Grade II*. The monument also includes the remains of the village of Kirby, a small medieval settlement established before the late 11th century and depopulated during the 16th century. The remains of the village take the form of earthworks and buried features which are partly overlain by the hall and gardens. The monument is situated in a shallow valley approximately 4km north east of Corby. The remains of Kirby Hall and associated service buildings are located on the north side of the Gretton Brook, which runs from south west to north east through the valley; the remains of the gardens extend from north west to south east across the brook, while the remains of the medieval settlement of Kirby are principally located on the south side. Settlement remains on the north side of the brook, including the church and manor house, are buried beneath later features. Kirby Hall is a rectangular building constructed of Weldon stone, built on a courtyard plan with a walled forecourt to the north. It was designed to replace an earlier manor house on the same site and partly incorporates the remains of that building. It is believed to have been built under the supervision of the stonemason Thomas Thorpe based on designs published in contemporary Continental pattern books. There are four wings ranged around the central courtyard, where each façade is composed of two principle storeys of mullioned and transomed windows; the façades are unified vertically, by the use of giant pilasters extending through both storeys, and horizontally by a tall plinth and by decorative friezes running at ground- and first-floor lintel level and along the parapet. The principle wing, on the south, includes the great hall and buttery with cellars and kitchen to the south east. The main entrance to the wing is through an elaborate central porch which leads into the east end of the great hall. This wing is believed to represent a rebuilding of the earlier medieval manor house. The present entrance formerly led into a screens passage which separated the hall on the west from the service rooms on the east. The service rooms, which survive as unroofed ruins, incorporate fragments of an earlier structure including a blocked window of mid-16th century type. The hall is roofed and glazed and has an elaborate plaster ceiling dated to the late 16th century. At the west end of the hall is a suite of state apartments, also roofed and glazed, which was built after 1575. Approached through two doorways at the dais end of the hall, it is based upon a symmetrical arrangement of two ground floor anterooms, to the north and south respectively of a central parlour, with two staircases projecting to the west; the staircases frame the central doorway of the parlour which was later converted into a window. Attached to the south is a four storey block, two rooms deep, with semicircular bay windows on the south face. The remainder of the house is largely unroofed and represented by stone walls standing in most parts to gable height. The east and west wings, which have matching façades to the courtyard, represent the lodging ranges of the hall where visitors would have been accommodated. The first floor of the west wing was occupied by a long gallery approached from the state apartments to the south. The north wing has an open ground floor loggia to the courtyard, beneath which is a series of empty pedimented niches; two symmetrical staircases lead from the ends of the loggia to first floor level. The present form of the north front of the north wing dates largely from the early 17th century and unites the ends of the east and west wings, originally projected northwards, as gabled terminals in a symmetrical façade of alternate shallowly recessed and projecting bays. At the centre is a projecting two storey gateway with chamfered rustication, topped by an elaborate gable. This gateway served as the main entrance to the courtyard. On the north side of the house is the forecourt, an open rectangular area which originated as an outer courtyard with outbuildings on the north and east sides. After the late 16th century the outbuildings were demolished and the present east and west walls were constructed, each with a large pedimented gateway flanked by two tiers of niches. The walls to the north of the gateways are topped by a balustrade; at the centre of the north wall is a smaller pedimented gateway with a scrolled cartouche and chamfered rustication on the north face and vermiculated rustication on the south face. This gateway, and the balustrade with which it is integral, are believed to have originated in the great West Garden in the early 17th century: the balustrade and north face of the gateway date from 1620, and the south face from a remodelling by the mason Nicholas Stone in about 1640. they are believed to have been moved to the forecourt in the late 17th century when the garden was redesigned. The forecourt is approached from both east and west via avenues leading to the main gateways. The western avenue is approximately 110m long and takes the form of two raised banks, about 14m wide, flanking a paved approach road. The banks are now planted with chestnut trees replacing trees felled in 1873-4. The eastern avenue, which is level, extends over a distance of approximately 90m and has been similarly replanted. This avenue runs through the service area of the hall where outbuildings such as the laundry, dairy and brewhouse were located. To the south of the avenue is a series of low earthworks, extending over an area of nearly 1ha, representing the remains of these buildings; the earthworks are bounded on the south by the standing fragments of a stone wall with a doorway which represents the south wall of the brewhouse. On the east they are bounded by a trackway which follows the course of a road by which the complex was approached from the south east from the 17th century onwards. The service area is believed to have been established by the end of the 17th century, overlying an earlier road which ran along the eastern edge of the house. To the south of the service area is an area of lawn, planted with mature trees, which slopes gently down to the stream and extends from the state apartments on the west to the trackway on the east. This area is thought to have been occupied by a medieval and early post-medieval privy garden but is believed to take its present form from informal landscaping of the late 18th century when the south wing was reoccupied by the Finch-Hattons. At the south eastern corner of the lawn, approached by the trackway which runs along the eastern edge of the monument, is an ornamental stone bridge about 2m in height. The eastern side of the bridge is faced with an arcade of roundheaded arches of limestone ashlar, all blind except one at the south end which houses a culvert; the top of the bridge and most of the west side are buried beneath the landscaped lawn. Archaeological and documentary evidence has demonstrated that the bridge was formerly ornamented with a balustrade identical to that now in the forecourt and believed to have been similarly removed from the Great West Garden in the late 17th century. The bridge is now thought to have originated in the later 17th century when the eastern access road was diverted to this position, while its remodelling in ashlar is dated to the late 18th century when the area adjacent to the west was landscaped. Adjacent to the west of Kirby Hall is the Great West Garden, a formal garden first laid out by Christopher Hatton II in the early 17th century. It takes the form of a flat rectangular platform measuring about 90m x 120m which has been levelled over a natural slope, cutting into the slope on the north and raised above it on the south. It is bounded on the north and west by raised terraces and on the south and south east by low retaining walls. The quadripartite plan of the parterre, with north-south and east-west cross-walks centred upon the former west doorway of the state apartments, reflects that of the original layout which has been revealed by part excavation. The area of the parterre is currently laid out for display purposes as a full-scale replica in grass and gravel cutwork of the late 17th century parterre. This display uses imported topsoil and other materials laid without disturbance on top of earlier structures and deposits, including the remains of the 1930s reconstruction. On the north side of the parterre is a raised terrace, about 18m wide and over 2m high, retained internally by a brick wall and externally by a stone wall. On the west side is a long grass-covered bank about 18m wide and 1.5m high, part excavation of which has identified the remains of walls, similar to those on the north, which define a shorter and narrower terrace with an opening in the middle. On the south side of the parterre is the base of a wall and the foundations of a central gateway; on the south east side is a buttressed retaining wall. These features, together with finds of other architectural fragments, indicate that the garden was originally completely enclosed by a brick wall topped by stone a balustrade, with a monumental gateway in each of the west and east sides. In the late 17th century the west and south walls were dismantled and the gateways and balustrade re-assembled in their present positions: one gateway is in the north wall of the garden and the other in the north forecourt with part of the balustrade. Also at this time the west terrace was lowered and widened to approximately its present dimensions, extending a further 90m southwards to the stream. From the south wall of the parterre a short flight of stone steps, which is Listed Grade II, leads down to a flat rectangular terrace of the same width as the parterre and extending about 28m southwards; at its western end is a viewing mound about 2m high known as the Mount. Below the south terrace is a levelled area of the same width which extends nearly 70m to the north bank of the stream. Beneath this lawn a system of rectilinear drainage channels and the remains of an earlier stream bed have been detected by geophysical survey. All of these features, including the canalisation of the stream to form part of the garden, date from the late 17th century when the Great West Garden was opened up and extended southwards over the remains of the part of the medieval village. The survival of village remains beneath the garden has been demonstrated by finds of human bones and building foundations in the area of the Mount, indicating the location of the village church. In the southern part of the monument is a large pasture field which includes, at its western end, further remains of farmal gardens laid out in the late 17th century. The remains take the form of low earthworks and buried features occupying a rectangular area approximately 110m wide and 320m long, extending from the stream to the north to Kirby Lane on the south; in the northern part of the field the gardens are built up over the sloping ground surface. The eastern boundary of the garden survives as a linear bank containing the remains of a stone wall; on the western boundary there are the remains of a similar bank and of a linear ditch running at right-angles from the stream. The layout and content of the gardens is known through documentary sources to have included an orchard at the north end and a formal plantation of native and exotic trees, known as the Wilderness, to the south. Both areas were subdivided by linear paths, now partly visible as linear depressions. Fragments of the kerb-stones which bounded the paths have been found in this area. This part of the monument, originally fields and house plots, is known through documentary sources to have been ploughed in 1689 in preparation for the creation of the garden, which was completed in 1692. The northern part of the garden thus overlies the buried remains of medieval house plots with associated building remains. In the eastern part of the pasture field is a series of earthworks including a hollow way running roughly east-west. This hollow way represents the main village street of the medieval settlement of Kirby. Adjacent to the north and south of the hollow way are the earthwork remains of buildings and plot boundaries which formerly lined the street. The eastern part of the hollow way is partly overlain by a rectilinear enclosure which is depicted in surveys of the late 16th century; by this time the settlement south of the stream had been abandoned and the former village street was used as an access way to Kirby Hall. The settlement remains at the western end of the hollow way are bounded to the north by a linear bank, running roughly parallel with the hollow way, which represents a former field boundary. To the north of this bank, and aligned with it, are the remains of medieval ridge and furrow cultivation representing the north western corner of one of the open fields of the village which were enclosed in the late 16th century. Overlying these remains, approximately on the course of the present field boundary, is the course of part of the access road to the hall which originated in the 17th century when the service area was established in the north eastern part of the monument; this route ran northwards across the ornamental stone bridge and south eastwards to the hollow way, joining Kirby Lane in the easternmost corner of the monument. To the south of the village earthworks is an area of undulating pasture which includes the buried remain of field and plot boundaries and of ridge and furrow cultivation associated with the medieval settlement of Kirby. Running north eastwards from the southern part of the formal garden is the course of an avenue of trees, depicted in the 18th century, which extended across medieval features towards the junction of Kirby Lane with the old village street and access road to the Hall. This avenue is thought to have been roughly contemporary with the layout of the formal gardens in the late 17th century. All modern fences and gates are excluded from the scheduling; all modern buildings in the north eastern part of the monument, which include the cottages, works yard and mobile toilet unit, are also excluded; the ground beneath all these features is, however, included.{SAM 17158} ASSESSMENT OF IMPORTANCE Country houses of the late Tudor and early Jacobean period comprise a distinctive group of buildings which differ in form, function, design and architectural style from country houses of both earlier and later date. Built after the dissolution of the monasteries they are the product of a particular historical period in which a newly-emerged Protestant elite of lawyers, courtiers, diplomats and other officials, mostly with close contacts at court, competed with each other to demonstrate wealth, taste and loyalty to the sovereign, often overstretching themselves financially. Their houses are a development of the medieval hall with flanking wings and a gatehouse, often looking inwards onto a courtyard; later examples tend to be built outwards, typically on a U- or H-plan. The hall was transformed from a reception area to an entrance vestibule and the long gallery and loggia were introduced. Many houses were provided with state apartments and extensive lodgings for the accommodation of royal visitors and their retinues. Country houses of this period were normally constructed under the supervision of one master-mason or a succession of masons, often combining a number of designs drawn up by the master-mason, surveyor or by the employer himself. Many designs and stylistic details were copied from Continental pattern-books, particularly those published in the 1560s on French, Italian and Flemish models; further architectural ideas were later spread by the use of foreign craftsmen. Symmetry in both plan and elevation was an overriding principle, often carried to extremes in the Elizabethan architectural `devices' in which geometric forms were employed to express religious and philosophical ideas. Elements of Classical architecture were drawn on individually rather than applied strictly in unified orders. This complex network of influences resulted in liberal and idiosyncratic combinations of architectural styles which contrasted with the adoption of the architecture of the Italian Renaissance, and with it the role of the architect, later in the 17th century. About 5000 country houses are known to have been standing in 1675; of these about 1000 are thought to survive, although most have been extensively altered or rebuilt in subsequent centuries to meet new demands and tastes. Houses which are uninhabited, and have thus been altered to a lesser degree, are much rarer. Surviving country houses of the late Tudor and early Jacobean period stand as an irreplaceable record of an architectural development which was unique both to England and to a particular period in English history characterised by a flourishing of artistic invention; they provide an insight into politics, patronage and economics in the early post-medieval period. All examples with significant surviving archaeological remains are considered to be of national importance. Kirby Hall was one of the first great country houses, or `prodigy houses', to be built in the Elizabethan period. As a high-status building with royal associations it played a seminal role in the development of architecture in England, serving as an important prototype for the English Renaissance style. Many features which subsequently became standard in Elizabethan architecture, such as the giant pilaster, were first employed at Kirby. Representing little over a hundred years of building activity which has been relatively unaltered by later work, it preserves a unique record of architecture and social life in a limited historical period. The survival of earthworks and buried archaeological deposits relating to the service buildings and yards associated with the house indicates that structural, artefactual and ecofactual remains of that period will be preserved, providing valuable evidence for domestic and economic activity. The formal gardens associated with the house survive well in the form of earthworks and buried remains, and part excavation has demonstrated the survival of archaeological deposits relating to their development from the original layout to the present reconstruction, thus making an important contribution to our understanding of the history of both this garden and of 17th century gardens in general. Kirby Hall and gardens are closely associated with settlement and cultivation remains of the medieval village of Kirby, including well-preserved earthworks and buried deposits; where these are overlain by, or incorporated into, the hall and gardens they preserve valuable evidence for the development of settlement through the medieval and post-medieval periods and the close relationships between features of different dates. Our understanding of the hall, gardens and village is significantly enhanced by the survival and study of a variety of documentary sources which offer precise dates, descriptions and a unique record of the social impact of activities which have been identified archaeologically. The presentation of part of the monument in the care of the Secretary of State and open to the public has included the conservation of both architectural and archaeological remains and their development as an important educational and recreational resource and has included the recent setting out in new materials of part of the 17th-century garden while leaving underlying deposits largely intact.

Record last edited

Sep 6 2023 10:02AM