Monument record 3005 - Cottesbrooke Park

Please read our .

Summary

Landscape park and formal gardens to Cottesbrooke Hall. The park was laid out about 1702-11, relandscaped during the 1770s and 1780s and extended in the 1820s and by the late 19th century. Formal gardens were first laid out during the early 18th century but removed when the park was landscaped circa 1780. Traces survive as earthworks. The formal gardens are mainly 20th century in date and include a parterre garden designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe in 1937 and a series of linked pleasure gardens laid out prior to the Second World War by Robert Weir Schultz and Geoffrey Jellicoe. Further designs were by Dame Sylvia Crowe and Lady Catherine Macdonald-Buchanan. Gardens were also laid out during the 1990s.

Map

Type and Period (8)

Full Description

{1} Formal gardens of largely C20 date with work by several designers including R W Schultz, G Jellicoe and S Crowe, and later C18 landscape park, associated with an early C18 country house.
In the second quarter of the C17 the two manors of Cottesbrooke were acquired by Sir John Langham (d 1671), a successful member of the Levant and East India Companies who was building up an extensive estate in Northamptonshire. He served as MP and Lord Mayor of London, and was created baronet in 1660. His grandson John (d 1746), fourth Baronet, who inherited in 1700, was the first of the family permanently to reside at Cottesbrooke, beginning the present house in 1702. He served as sheriff in 1703, and his apparently wide interests in architecture and music are reflected in the design of Cottesbrooke Hall. Repairs were undertaken during the time of James Langham (d 1795), seventh Baronet, MP and sheriff, who also did work in the park, in the later 1770s digging a lake and building new lodges and approaches. The Langhams retained Cottesbrooke until 1911, when it was sold by the thirteenth Baronet to R B Brassey. In 1937 it was again sold, to the MacDonald-Buchanans. It remains in private hands in 1998.
Cottesbrooke Hall is one of the candidates for the prototype of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (guidebook).
Cottesbrooke lies on a minor road north-east of Brixworth, which lies on the A508 roughly midway between and c 15km distant from Northampton to the south and Market Harborough to the north. Cottesbrooke can also be reached via the A50 Northampton to Leicester road, which passes 2km to the west. The Hall lies to the north of the village, with its park extending for 2.5km along the settlement’s east and north sides. The area here registered extends to c.250 ha.
The Hall lies within a landscape park, which extends for 1km north and east of it, and has a 400m wide, 1.5km long, dog-leg extension extending south-westwards to the Leicester road. This was added to the park in the mid C19 to flank the north drive. The main feature of the park is the 600m lake, narrow and straight, which lies c 300m to the south of the Hall and slightly downhill of it. This probably represents an elongation in c 1780 of the pre-existing pool. Within the park, including its south-west extension, there is much well-preserved ridge and furrow, and large numbers of mature parkland trees.
A park, or at least a designed landscape, was laid out from the new Hall in the early C18. Eayre and Jeffery’s map (originating in a survey of 1720) appears to show avenues radiating on the main axis from the north and south sides of the Hall, and the former is still visible on the 1st edition OS map of 1888. Each extends to or beyond a pool. Ladies’ Pool to the north-west survives, somewhat reduced, while that to the south-east represents the east end of the lake. A third avenue was apparently aligned on Cottesbrooke church. Although the park was improved and presumably made less formal and more open in the 1770s, it was apparently left unenlarged, and in the 1820s extended south to the Fish Pond, west to the stream which supplied it, north to a line between the pool and The Shrubbery and east to a straight boundary (still extant) from the south end of Long Walk Spinney through Park Spinney to the east end of the Fish Pond. By the late C19 the park had been extended to much the same extent as here registered, and also included an outlying and detached block of land 1km to the south-east of the village, straddling the road to Brixworth.

{2} Formal gardens were first laid out during the early 18th century but removed when the park was landscaped circa 1780. Traces survive as earthworks. The formal gardens are mainly 20th century in date and include a parterre garden designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe in 1937 and a series of linked pleasure gardens laid out prior to the Second World War by Robert Weir Schultz and Geoffrey Jellicoe. Further design were by Dame Sylvia Crowe and Lady Catherine Macdonald-Buchanan. Gardens were also laid out during the 1990s. The park was laid out about 1702-11 and relandscaped during the 1770s and 1780s. It was extended in the 1820s and by the late 19th century.

{4} Sir James Langham B. and 2nd edition of 1791 shows tree patterns, but not enclosed in a fence.

{9} Reference wrong - actually Wakerley.


<1> English Heritage, 1994, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (1994, Northamptonshire), (part checked) (Report). SNN1324.

<2> English Heritage, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (Northamptonshire), revised 28-May-2004 (Report). SNN113766.

<3> Richardson, T. (Ed.), 2000, The Garden Book, (unchecked) (Book). SNN101459.

<4> Eyre T. (Revised by Jefferys T.), 1779, Map of the County of Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Map). SNN1852.

<5> 1936, Country Life (1936), 168-73+194 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN54869.

<6> 1955, Country Life (1955), p.736-39+806 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN59192.

<7> 1970, Country Life (1970), p.434-37 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN59193.

<8> LANGHAM PAPERS., (unchecked) (Uncertain). SNN59194.

<9> TAYLOR, Uncertain, p.17 (unchecked) (Uncertain). SNN45757.

Sources/Archives (9)

  • <1> Report: English Heritage. 1994. Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (1994, Northamptonshire). Northamptonshire. English Heritage. (part checked).
  • <2> Report: English Heritage. Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (Northamptonshire). Northamptonshire. English Heritage. revised 28-May-2004.
  • <3> Book: Richardson, T. (Ed.). 2000. The Garden Book. Phaidon. (unchecked).
  • <4> Map: Eyre T. (Revised by Jefferys T.). 1779. Map of the County of Northamptonshire. NRO Map 1119. (unchecked).
  • <5> Journal: 1936. Country Life (1936). Country Life. 79. Country Life. 168-73+194 (unchecked).
  • <6> Journal: 1955. Country Life (1955). Country Life. 117. Country Life. p.736-39+806 (unchecked).
  • <7> Journal: 1970. Country Life (1970). Country Life. 147. Country Life. p.434-37 (unchecked).
  • <8> Uncertain: LANGHAM PAPERS.. (unchecked).
  • <9> Uncertain: TAYLOR. Uncertain. p.17 (unchecked).

Finds (0)

Related Monuments/Buildings (25)

Related Events/Activities (1)

Location

Grid reference Centred SP 70663 74380 (4186m by 3036m) Approximate
Civil Parish COTTESBROOKE, West Northamptonshire (formerly Daventry District)

Protected Status/Designation

Other Statuses/References

  • NRHE HOB UID: 1141723

Record last edited

Feb 7 2025 2:35PM

Comments and Feedback

Do you have any questions or more information about this record? Please feel free to comment below with your name and email address. All comments are submitted to the website maintainers for moderation, and we aim to respond/publish as soon as possible. Comments, questions and answers that may be helpful to other users will be retained and displayed along with the name you supply. The email address you supply will never be displayed or shared.