Monument record 1682/3/2 - The Privy Garden, Kirby Hall

{1} Other paths and drains can be identified in the Privy Garden, where their presence has also been tested by sample excavation. While part of a previous formal garden-layout might be represented, the full extent of its design, together with any possible relationships with adjacent boundaries and the series of service buildings also known in the area, requires more investigation. A series of naïve sketches from the mid-1820s shows the area laid out with simple, geometric flower-beds against a backdrop of mature tres in front of the house. There is so far no archaeological evidence of this arrangement, however.

The Privy garden was originally bordered at the west by a wall along the edge of the raised platform of the great Garden. While this was rebuilt on the existing foundations in the 1930s, it had until that time lain forgotten beneath a simple slope which was presumably created as part of the late seventeenth-century remodelling. The alignment had previously continued southwards, eventually perhaps as far as to the canal, but without doubt beyond the end of the South Terrace.

<1> Dix B.; Soden I.; Hylton T., 1995, Kirby Hall and Its Gardens: Excavations in 1987-1994, p.337-9 (unchecked) (Report). SNN74020.

<2> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1979, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.60 (Series). SNN77380.

<3> English Heritage, 1984, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (1984, Northamptonshire), (unchecked) (Report). SNN46781.

Record last edited

Aug 28 2014 5:02PM