Monument record 1682/3 - Post Medieval Formal Gardens, Kirby Hall

Formal gardens at Kirby Hall laid out during the 1580s possibly by Sir Christopher Hatton. By 1666 the area of gardens had been extended. A futher extension of the garden was made in 1689-92. Remodelling of the gardens took place in 1685-86 and in 1693-94, possibly using advice from George London. During the 1930s the gardens were excavated and the result were used for the restoration of the gardens. Additional excavations took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and as a result the restored garden was replaced with a simpler layout

{1} Post medieval gardens & prospect mound at Kirby Hall; small garden in 1580s but major extensions made in 1680s; gardens to south were totally abandoned in C19th; gardens to west of hall were cleared & restored by D.O.E.; they extended as far as Kirby Lane; plan;

{2} Gardens; formal; begun in 1685; a long narrow strip to the south-west of the Hall; it originally extended beyond the brook up the hill but it has been largely destroyed up here; much survives of the Great West grden however, which was replanted in the 1930s; it was a formal layout in 4 sections with a centre-piece; to the north and west is a raised terrace, to the south is a rectangular terrace with a rectangular mound to the west, which was possibly constructed by Sir Christopher Hatton IV; the brook was canalised; the Wilderness and Privy Gardens to the south east are now destroyed; the north terrace is faced with brick and stone and a blind rusticated gateway; the walls to the forecourt of the house have 16th-17th century archways;

{3}The gardens were established about 1640; terrace forms west side; they were retained by brick wall with possible gateway at centre; possible medieval tunnel or culvert also revealed;

{4}Garden accounts, trees, plants, agreement made with gardener for maintenance of garden proposals to make estate more economic - 1668.

{8} Excavation 1987-88; Gardens at Kirby Hall were to formal design imported form France by Sir Christopher Hatton III;

{9} The remains of Kirby Hall's gardens occupy a long, narrow strip of ground some 100m wide and 570m long running south from the west side of the Hall, down into the shallow valley of the Kirby Brook and then up the hillside beyond. The northernmost compartment, or great Garden, was laid out anew in the 1990s following excavation and documentary research, and comprises a 120m long quartered lawn with gravel paths in a style typical of late C17 cutwork derived from a style at Longleat. Across its north end is a raised terrace of c 1605-19, 20m wide, 3m high and 90m long, with a stone wall on its outer side and a brick wall on the inner. In the centre is a stone gateway. This was probably built c 1610-20 at the west end of the main cross-walk across the garden ( the position now occupied by the statue fragment: see below), was reworked by Nicholas Stone c 1640, and moved to its present position and blocked in 1694. The north raised terrace returns south as a 237m long and 12m wide terraced or ramped walk down the west side of the garden and to the Kirby Brook beyond. A broken statue stands on a plinth at the base of the walk at the end of the main east/west cross-walk across the garden. Another brick plinth lies to its south. In the centre of the south side of the Great Garden a shallow flight of steps leads down to the grass south terrace. At the west end of the terrace is a denuded raised mound, raised over the site of Kirby's church. The mound, originally rectangular, may have been constructed in the early C17, at the same time as the Great Garden.
Of the further compartments to the south, including the Wilderness, well documented by contemporary maps and other sources, little visible evidence survives. Beyond the brook- straightened where it passes through the garden, with the water level controlled in the C17 by a dam and sluice- the ground is permanent grass farmland. Here (outside the registered area) slight traces of the east and west boundaries of the garden can be seen along with earthworks of the southern part of Kirby village.
Before the south front of Kirby Hall, the site of Kirbys' Privy Garden, is a lawn. Archaeological explorations c 1990 located the perimeter paths, presumably of the Privy Garden. Along the west side of the lawn is the buttressed terrace wall of the west garden, rebuilt in the 1930s on old foundations.
To the east of the Hall is a lawn on which stands the modern works compound and to its north the modern (mid C20) custodian's house. The compound is partly screened by modern planting, while a few older trees lie to its south.
When the construction of the Hall began in 1570 the area later absorbed into its gardens was still part of the village of Kirby; in the 1580s a garden and orchard lay west of the Hall while to the south was Kirby's parish church and at least some of its village houses. Inclosure and depopulation of the village, perhaps anyway in decline from the C14, was complete by 1608, although the church may have stood until the later C17. In the later 1580s a new stable block was built north-east of the Hall's forecourt which was then made a grand outer court by the addition of great gateways on its east and west sides. The Great Garden west of the Hall was probably laid out c 1605-19, the impetus perhaps the visits made by James I between 1612 and 1619.
After Kirby was inherited in 1619 by Sir Christopher Hatton III the gardens became well known, and in 1654 they were commended by John Evelyn (Archaeol J 1995, 293). The family's horticultural interests seem to have become more pronounced from the 1660s. By 1666 the gardens may have been extended south of Kirby Brook and an orchard, while in 1689-92 the creation of the Wilderness up the valley slope to the south of the orchard almost doubled the length of the gardens. A century later Bridges (1791, 314) saw in the Wilderness 'almost the whole variety of English trees and ranged in an elegant order'. Meanwhile, in 1685-6, the Great Garden was remodelled, with the walks being heightened, intricate new beds laid out, and much garden statuary introduced. In 1693-4 the Great Garden was turned through a right-angle to lie north/south from its original position, possibly to the advice of George London (d 1714) who was at Kirby in 1693. Together with the removal of the wall along the south side of the Great Garden this produced a vista south to the Wilderness beyond.

{11} A later garden, notable for a number of factors related to archaeology, is that at Kirby Hall. The great house was built in the late C16th and then had its own small garden. In 1680 Sir Christopher Hatton IV destroyed the parish church and the small village of Kirby, then lying just outside the walls of the house, and laid out a magnificent garden nearly 570m long and 100m wide and divided into walled compartments which stretched across the adjoining valley. On Sir Christopher’s death in 1706 the house and gardens were neglected. It was not until the C20th that the house was taken into guardianship by the D.O.E. and clearance of the garden revealed not only the brick and stone revetments of the terraces but also the limestone kerbs of the flower beds of the northern third of the garden. This part of the original garden has now been restored, making it a very rare example of a true C17th garden. More recent field walking of the land once occupied by the other two-thirds of the garden has lead to the discovery of more kerb stones and traces of the boundary walls, which have confirmed the rather coarse details of the original garden shown on a map of 1720. Plate 21.

{12} To the west and south of the Hall are the remains of formal gardens, bounded to the south by a stream, the Kirby Brook, which flows west to east along the valley bottom. To the south of the stream the land rises gently and originally this area was partly occupied by the village of Kirby which was finally cleared in the C17th. After its removal this gently sloping valley side became part of the contrived prospect to be viewed from the house, with part at the western side incorporated into a semi-formal garden area comprising a wilderness.

{17} Resistivity survey of the lawns surrounding Kirby Hall identified a palimpsest of linear anomalies related to the former ornamental garden design and other features. A network of linear features is interpreted as a complex drainage system with an outfall running parallel to Gretton Brook to the south of the hall.

{19} Ground-Penentrating Radar (GPR) survey of the South Lawn identified many of the same features already identified by the earlier restivity survey.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1979, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, (unchecked) (Series). SNN77380.

<2> STEANE J.M., 1977, The Development of Tudor and Stuart Garden Design in Northamptonshire, p.400 (unchecked) (Article). SNN69732.

<3> DIX B N, 1988, SMR REPORT FORM, (unchecked) (Note). SNN49656.

<4> FINCH HATTON COLLECTION, (unchecked) (Uncertain). SNN46188.

<5> 1988, GUARDIAN, (unchecked) (Note). SNN45543.

<6> DIX B N, UNPUBLISHED REPORT, (unchecked) (Interim Report). SNN57629.

<7> Anthony J., 1979, Gardens of Britain, (unchecked) (Series). SNN34164.

<8> 1987, Northamptonshire Archaeology Unit: Report for 1987, (checked) (Report). SNN55128.

<9> English Heritage, 1984, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (1984, Northamptonshire), (checked) (Report). SNN46781.

<10> SLADEN T., 1984, The Garden at Kirby Hall: 1570-1700, (unchecked) (Article). SNN76050.

<11> Taylor C., 1983, The Archaeology of Gardens, p.48 (checked) (Series). SNN41440.

<12> Prentice J.; Walker C.; Parry S., 2012, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment of Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire, p.2 (checked) (Report). SNN109199.

<13> Treswell R., 1586, Kirby (NRO FH 272/8), (unchecked) (Map). SNN46187.

<14> Treswell R., 1586, Kirby (NRO FH 272/9), (unchecked) (Map). SNN72124.

<15> 1750 circa, Kirby (NRO Map 3281B), (unchecked) (Map). SNN109697.

<16> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1991, Garden Archaeology, (unchecked) (Report). SNN62691.

<17> DIX B., 1991, Towards the Restoration of a Period Garden: An interim report on archaeological excavation and related investigation at Kirby Hall, (unchecked) (Article). SNN70041.

<18> Linford N., 1992, Kirby Hall, Northamptonshire: Report on Geophysical Survey (Report). SNN109699.

<19> Linford, N, 2022, Kirby Hall, Gretton, North Northamptonshire: Report on Geophysical Survey, July 2021, https://doi.org/10.5284/1110878 (Report). SNN113425.

<20> English Heritage, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (Northamptonshire), Northamptonshire, revised 28-May-2004 (Report). SNN113766.

<21> Undated, Kirby Hall, Gretton, BF059962 (Archive). SNN113767.

Record last edited

Jul 23 2024 2:55PM