Canons Ashby

 So where to today? As it was sunny I thought I'd go to Canons Ashby. It's a small property and if it rains there isn't enough for a day. If it is sunny it is a lovely place to sit and read.

As  I said before! 

Canons Ashby is an Elizabethan house in Northamptonshire. Until it passed in to the hands of the National Trust it had been owned by the Dryden family since around 1550. The family never had lots of money so the house hasn't been modernised as some have. The garden have houses escaped the Capability Brown treatment and are therefore an important survival. It isn't huge but is nice and a great place to sit and read.

Indeed if the National Trust are reading this ;) I like Canons because it seems less corporate than some. I think being away from other trust properties has that affect, Gunby Hall in Lincolnshire evokes that reaction. I long for the days when properties were more unique. They now all have the same gift range in the shop etc etc. 

Canons Ashby gets its name from the Augustinian priory which was founded in the 12th century. A small fraction of the monastic church survives. In 1551 it became the private chapel of the Dryden family who unusually kept the church open as a parish church. Today it is owned by the National Trust and is one of 4 privately owned parish churches (apparently, and no I don't know the others).

I ought to comment that today there were lots of children and dogs. The dogs were much quieter LOL

I find these panels moving the sons of Louisa Isabella Prichard who died in WWI

there mother who out lived them by over 30 years.