Monument record 8088 - Boughton House Park

Landscape park and formal gardens to Boughton House. The gardens were laid out from 1685 and involved the appointment of a 'new gardener' Van de Meulen who worked here until 1717. The main focus of the garden was the diversion of the River Ise to form ornamental lakes and water gardens. The formal garden layout was completed by 1709. Modification of the gardens took place between 1726-31 and involved Joseph Burgis and Charles Bridgeman. The park was first emparked in 1473 and extended in the 17th century. Much of the park's current planting scheme dates to the 1680s and comprises a network of interconnecting avenues and rides.

{2} Spacious and beautiful house of 91 acres with waterworks, a canal above 1/2 mile long and a cascade, a whole river running through the garden.

{5} Bridgeman received £100 pa for 1726-31 Montagu House, London.

{11} Features: early formal layout with parkland; 60ha in size; developed by Ralph Montagu from 1683 and executed by van den Meulen; additions including extensive avenue planting by son John from 1715; Charles Bridgeman consulted between 1726-31; gardens largely unchanged since the mid 18th century; extensive water features and parterres now grassed over and square mount circa 1725 to west; original Roubiliac lead vases and statuary; central lake, canal, dam, cascade and star pond restored to pre-1700 state; wilderness and park still have some original planting; avenue of limes planted in 1715 are one of largest in country; dead limes replaced by other limes in 1970s; Dower House and stables circa 1704 adjoin house to east.

{13} Boughton House garden remains, centred SP 896815. The outstandingly well preserved remains of the important early 18th century gardens constitute one of the major monuments of Northamptonshire. In addition to the extant remains, the site is well documented in contemporary correspondence and commentary, and a series of plans, the earliest being that of William Stukely in 1706. The Montagu family had acquired the estate in the early 16th century, and by 1557 had assembled a large compact block of land. Ralph Montagu, ambassador to Paris 1669-72 inherited the estate in 1684. He had been greatly influenced by contemporary French architecture and garden design and soon began rebuilding the house. A new gardener, probably the Dutchman Van de Meulen was appointed in 1685.
The main work on the diversion of the River Ise to form ornamental lakes and water gardens, and the layout of the formal gardens was probably complete at the death of Ralph Montagu in 1709. Enlargement of some of the garden features and construction of the rides extending across the estate took place circa 1720-50 under John Montagu, Joseph Burgess and Charles Bridgeman. After the death of John Montagu in 1749 the
estate passed to the Buccleach family. Little subsequent change was made to the gardens. When complete the formal gardens extended southwest from the hall forming two large rectangular areas joined at one corner. These areas were divided into an elaborate series of parterres, gravelled walks, geometric ponds and fountains. The ornamental canal formed the southwest boundary. A windmill shown on a plan of 1712 may have powered a wind pump to raise water for the numerous fountains. A wilderness garden lay to the southeast of the formal gardens.
The avenues and rides extending around the estate totalled 36 km in length and were aligned on views of the house or surrounding landmarks. Neglect since the 18th century, quarrying and agriculture have removed many of the avenues, and the formal gardens survive principally as earthworks. Restoration of one of the larger ponds in 1975 recovered evidence of early 18th century features, wooden water pipes and fragments of masonry from the gardens. [RCHM plans and reconstruction drawings].

{15} Photo of Boughton Park - framed map of entire parkland. Circa 1730 - after enlargement of lake. Several interesting tree formations but very formal grounds.

{16} Photo of Bridgeman plan.

{17} Photo of Switzer plan.

{18} Photo of Boughton Park.

{19} Gabriel Dulahaye. Plan of Boughton. Coloured M.S. house and extensive formal gardens and park 1712.

{25} 1723 - DeLaHaye paid for producing survey of gardens at Boughton.1780's Boughton verging on ruin, neglected and left to desolation - 5th and 6th Dukes stayed only occasionally at the house.1909 - Boughton - "a palace in decay" - Country Life photographs showing restoration to Great Hall.1970's - 1990's - restoration and rebuilding in much of the parkland and gardens - re-excavation of water features, replanting of avenues, extension of glasshouse areas etc.Boughton estate 11,000 acres in 1992.

{26} 1726 - The gardens and house are both ill kept for the Duke not being there above a fortnight in 2 or 3 years and all the furniture except fine family portraits is taken down for other uses.

{27} Accounts books for Boughton House including expenditure on gardens.

{28} Boughton is situated 3 miles from Boston and belongs to the Duke of Montogu. It lies in a valley and one cannot see it until one is already there. The avenues hither are beautiful with the numerous lovely alleys crossing each other in different ways mile after mile, flanked by tall trees. It is the only one of its kind in England. The house itself is entirely patterned after Versailles..In the park a great number of deer can be seen.

{29} Stayed 4 months at Boughton in 1787-8.

{34} Earthworks representing landscape terracing.

{38} Another factor which lead to the survival of gardens is the change from formal gardens to landscaped parks in the mid C18th. Earlier gardens were often grassed over and left untouched in the new parkland. This relatively sudden change in fashion for the ideal setting of a great house resulted in the fossilisation of many earlier gardens. Those at Boughton, laid out between 1683 and 1740, suffered this fate soon after 1750 when the area was converted to parkland. Plates 7+8.
By the late C17th the arrangement of gardens was changing under the influence of new ideas from abroad and especially from France. One of the greatest of these French gardens is at Boughton. The gardens were laid out on the orders of Ralph Montagu, later first Duke of Montagu, between 1685 and 1709. Montagu had been the British ambassador in Paris during the 1660s and 1670s and was much influenced by French ideas. The new garden was planned to go with Montagu’s addition, entirely in the late C17th French style, to the old house at Boughton. To make the garden, the River Ise was diverted into a series of long, straight canals, and other canals, rectangular ponds and an extensive arrangement of terraced flower beds, walkways and contrived wooded areas were constructed. This great garden was subsequently altered in detail at least twice, but in 1750 the last Duke died and the estate passed through the female line, to the Beccleuch family. This resulted in the abandonment of the house as a permanent home and coincided with a major change of garden fashion. Most of the gardens were grassed over and incorporated into the landscaped park. As a consequence most of the constructed features were fossilised in the new grassland.
The recovery by archaeologists of the details of this garden however, involved more than merely detailed surveys of these extant remains. The surveys were important and among other things led to the discovery of some of the original 1680 flower beds (Fig.11), ponds and the channels of the elaborate water gardens as well as the more obvious terraces and canals. Other techniques were used, including the study of air photographs taken about 1950, which revealed evidence of other flower beds which had been destroyed by modern cultivation. More importantly perhaps, the results of modern estate improvement not only produced exciting information but indicated the potential for controlled archaeological excavation on such gardens.
In the south-west corner of the gardens at Boughton Ralph Montagu constructed an elaborate water feature known as the Star Pond. This was much admired by his contemporaries, a number of whom described it. It consisted of a sunken rectangular area of water with circular projections on three sides. It was surrounded by walkways and apparently fed by water from one of the high-level canals pouring over a series of steps known as The Cascade. On either side of the cascade was a row of fountains which threw water upwards and at an angle so that it fell back on to the cascade itself. In addition there were other fountains within the pond, one in each corner of each projection and a group in the centre. All these fountains were removed and the cascade was replaced by a simple waterfall in the 1720s, while later neglect and alterations reduced the pond to an irregular depression fed by leakage from the canal.
In 1975 the pond was partially drained and dredged as part of modern estate management. This work was observed by archaeologists and many new features were revealed. The lower part of the cascade steps was found to survive below the modern water level as did a low-level walkway, set at the original water’s edge, paved with stones and bounded by elm-wood kerbs which projected into the pond at intervals. The edge of the depression in which the pond lay was seen to have been revetted in stone with pilaster buttresses and surmounted by a stone balustrade. The revetment still existed as did the scars of the buttresses, and a number of pieces of the balustrade were also recovered. Even complete earthenware spigots from the fountainhead were found. Other discoveries included wooden drainpipes, actually hollowed-out elm trunks, which showed that water from the adjacent water garden was passed underground into the Star Pond. The gardens at Boughton are not only a remarkable survival but show what can be achieved by the archaeological examination of such remains.
The gardens at Boughton were remodelled on at least two occasions during their short life. For example, the original centrepiece of the garden was an octagonal pond. This was replaced by a rectangular one in 1721 and then doubled in size in 1725. On the latter occasion also a raised square ‘mount’ was created and most of the earlier flower beds were grassed over. Yet the archaeological survey was able to notice these changes and in particular to recognise the complex layout of the original flower beds. Radical changes in arrangement, which were characteristic of all gardens as fashions changed, are important features which garden archaeologists must be prepared for.
The continental influence on gardens at the end of the C17th led to the establishment of parks beyond the formal gardens themselves. At Boughton the gardens were only part of a much larger area of emparking laid out at the same time. The formal gardens became more open with long views across them which were then carried out on to adjoining parkland to create vistas. The introduction of the ha ha or sunken fence by the landscape architect Bridgeman helped this development.

{39} About 1472 Richard Whetehill, a Merchant of the Staple, Lieutenant of Guines Castle and comptroller of the town, marches and mint of Calais, purchased one of the two manors of Boughton. In 1473 he retired from his posts and gained licences to crenellate and to make a park of 100 acres (c 41ha). The property changed hands several times over the next half century, and in 1528 was purchased with the adjoining manor of Weekley by Edward Montagu (d 1557), a successful lawyer who subsequently much enlarged his Northamptonshire estates by purchase and rebuilt the house at Boughton. His son Edward (d 1602), MP and sheriff, entertained the Queen here in 1564. He was succeeded by his son Edward (d 1664), who was created Baron Montagu of Boughton in 1621. In 1647 Boughton was one of the houses visited by Charles I to play bowls while under arrest at Holdenby (qv). His second son, Ralph Montagu (d 1709), succeeded in 1684. An ambitious politician who held various appointments at Court and served as ambassador to France (in 1669 72 and 1676 8) he married twice, in both instances to wealthy and titled women. After several years spent in exile in France he returned to England in 1685 and began an ambitious scheme to rebuild the house and lay out extensive gardens. Ralph, who was made Earl of Montagu in 1689 and Duke in 1705, entertained William III at Boughton in 1695. He was succeeded by his son John, second Duke (d 1749), who held Court offices but whose interests were mainly gardening and antiquarian studies, and who did extensive works in the park. His heir was his daughter Mary, wife of George Brudenell of Deene, fourth Earl Cardigan (d 1790), in whose favour the duchy of Montagu was recreated in 1766. Their son predeceased them and the estates passed to the son of their daughter Elizabeth, who had married the third Duke of Buccleuch. Boughton descended thereafter with the dukedom, and remained in private hands in 1998.

Description
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING
Boughton House stands in its park in a slight hollow on the east side of the shallow valley of the River Ise, 2km north-east of the attractive estate village of Weekley. Passing through that village, and forming the west boundary of the park, is the A43 from Kettering, c 5km to the south-west, to Corby and Stamford. The area here registered includes the formal gardens around the House and the parkland to west (to the A43), east (to the Geddington to Grafton Underwood road) and north (to the C18 park wall 650m north of the House), as well as woodlands and avenues which form or formed parts of the surrounding designed landscape. The area here registered is c 600ha.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The main approach is from the north-west, via a drive across the park from The Lodge on the A43. Some 400m east of the lodge the drive crosses an early C18 stone bridge (listed grade II). Another drive approaches from the east, past Crooked Lodge on the Grafton Underwood to Geddington road. Another gateway with piers lies on the edge of Weekley village.

Shortly before Ralph Montagu’s death in 1709 a grand axial approach was made to an outer court on the north side of the House. This seems to have been little used, and was superseded by the present approach from the north-west, made c 1723.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Boughton House (listed grade I) is arranged around several courtyards, incorporated within which are the remains of a substantial late medieval house. The transformation of what was a large but rambling house began in 1685 when Ralph Montagu inherited, his work including a monumental, arcaded north range in the French style with state apartments. The other ranges were remodelled by his son, John, on a more modest scale. After the mid C18 there were few alterations as Boughton was but one of several seats owned by the family.

The two-storey, limestone ashlar stable block (listed grade I) lies north-east of the House, and is almost as monumental. It was completed c 1702.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS
Boughton’s late C17 and early C18 gardens were extensive and complex, as are their remains. Only an outline description is provided below of the principal features; for a more comprehensive catalogue see RCHM€ 1979, pp 154 64, and for a contemporary description Morton’s account published in 1712.

The main outlines of the late C17 gardens were provided by the River Ise, which was diverted around the west side of the House in a series of straight cuts, each c 300m long, and turned through two right-angles. At the east end of the north canal, 50m north-west of the House, is the Grand Etang, a roughly square pool 100m across. South of that canal, on the main west axis from the House, is a broad, tree-lined grass walk with slight earthwork remains of the complex parterres (Parterre of Statues, Parterre of Basins, Water Parterre, Wilderness of Apartments) which formerly occupied this area of the gardens, at the end of which is the dry basin of the roughly square Broad Pool, c 150m across. On its south side is a raised mount, made from its excavated spoil, east of which is a square compartment within which are the low earthworks of the early C18 flower beds. There are views down the walk west across the Ise, here on a north/south line through the middle of the Broad Pool, and out along the Broad Walk, the main avenue, for c 1.5km to the horizon.

The formal garden remains stretch for a further 500m south of the western parterres, the canalisation west of the Ise expanding the east/west extent of the gardens to 1km. South of the House and the western parterres are the traces of the many other late C17 and early C18 gardens and compartments which occupied this area. Notable is the 60m square Lily Pool c 100m south of the House, with grass steps on the centre of its east side leading up to a former bowling green, now with swimming pool. Between the pool and the House is a formal lawn.

The western part of the gardens south of the parterres is bounded to the north and west by the canals, at the south end of which is the Star Pond. No longer extant is the much-admired Great Cascade which in the early C18 fed the Pond from the canal to the west. East of the Star Pond, and extending along the south side of the kitchen gardens, is woodland, Wilderness Spinney and The Wilderness. Most of the statuary which adorned the wildernesses and other parts of the garden in the early C18 is no longer at Boughton.

The elaborate gardens at Boughton seem to have been begun a year or two after the new house, for in 1685 a ‘new gardener’ (RCHM€ 1979, 157) was sent there, probably the Dutchman Van de Meulen who was to work there until his death in 1717. The scheme he was to carry out may have been conceived many years earlier, for when at Versailles and St Cloud in 1669 Ralph Montagu ‘formed the ideas in his own mind, both of buildings and gardening’ (ibid, 154 64). By 1694 Charles Hatton could speak of ‘great talk of vast gardens at Boughton’ as well as the failure to date to make fountains work (ibid, 157). By 1706 the gardens west of the House were apparently complete, and by 1709, when Ralph Montagu died, the main work on the whole scheme was finished. About 1721 his son John, the second Duke (‘John the Planter’), began to modify the gardens, from 1726 31 employing Charles Bridgeman (d 1738) in at least an advisory capacity. Also important were Booth the agent and Joseph Burgis who was paid £250 to look after the gardens. The Broad Pool, for instance, replaced the earlier octagonal basin, while the cascade and its fountains was replaced by a simple, ashlar waterfall. Already in the 1720s, many of the original flower gardens were being grassed over. After 1749 and the death of the second Duke the gardens saw few changes and in the later C18 Boughton was reported neglected and left to desolation.

PARK
Boughton House lies within a roughly oval park c 1.5km across. Along the north side of Weekley village, and alongside the A43 and the Geddington to Grafton Underwood road, the park is surrounded by a wall, mostly of brick and probably early C18. On the line of the Broad Walk the wall is broken, with wooden paling connecting early C18 stone piers (listed grade II). Almost all of the park is permanent pasture, and it contains a fairly high density of mature parkland trees.

The park contains extensive areas of earthworks relating to pre-imparkment activity, notably large areas of ridge and furrow representing open-field land belonging to Boughton and Weekley. The site of Boughton, in the late Middle Ages a small and struggling settlement which was presumably depopulated following imparkment in 1473, is marked by a hollow-way and other earthworks 100m north of the stable block. Running north-east through the west side of the park from the green in Weekley village is a hollow-way, until the extension of the park in the C17 the Kettering to Stamford road. Close to the east side of Boughton House is a long, low, pillow mound; there was a warren in this area in the late C17 and early C18.

Extending out from the House and park are the still considerable surviving elements of the network of avenues some 36km and rides laid out across the Boughton estate from the later C17. (As with the gardens, only some of the main elements are here described; for a fuller discussion see RCHM€ 1979, pp 154 64.) Among the most important vistas is the Broad Walk avenue west from the House, which had been laid out by 1715. At its east end, c 550m from the House, is an early to mid C18 statue base (listed grade II). This avenue was replanted west of the A43 in the late C20; underlying the pasture which the avenue crosses is well-preserved ridge and furrow, part of Weekley’s open fields. Also surviving in good condition is the Lime Tree Avenue which runs south from the south side of the grounds to high ground 2km to the south, c 800m south-east of Warkton village. From this point other avenues radiated as a patte d’oie north-west and north-east; only occasional over-mature trees survive. The main avenue north from the House, now largely disappeared, led north for c 2.5km to the Geddington Chase wood, through which it continued for another 750m as a straight ride to a clearing around Chase Lodge, a C19 stone keeper’s house. Six further straight rides radiate out in other directions from the clearing. Also registered is woodland (Bancroft Wood etc) c 1km north-east of the main park, again cut through with rides which formed part of the early C18 landscape.

Licence to impark 100 acres (c 41ha) was granted in 1473. The House lies near the centre of the original park which was roughly triangular, with its east boundary the modern Geddington to Grafton Underwood boundary. In the C17 the park was extended to the west necessitating a new line for the Kettering to Stamford road. The transformation of the House and gardens from the 1680s extended outwards to embrace much of the surrounding estate through the network of interconnecting avenues and rides, which north of Boughton run for 6km to and around the north side of Stanion village.

KITCHEN GARDEN
The two stone-walled kitchen gardens, overall c 440m x 60m, part of the original late C17 scheme and still in cultivation, lie along the north side of The Wilderness. The west garden, twice the length of that to the east, is separated from it by the main walk south from the west front of the House.

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Record last edited

Feb 10 2025 7:50PM