The Menagerie

The Menagerie is a garden building begun in 1761, with alterations around 1840, located within Castle Ashby Park. Constructed in limestone ashlar with lead and slate roofs, it has a tripartite plan and a single storey, spanning seven bays. The prominent central portico, with five bays, features four Tuscan columns and pilasters, approached by three moulded stone steps. The portico’s details include triple-stepped bases, a plain frieze with paterae above the columns and on the centre of the lintels, a deep moulded cornice incorporating Roman Doric elements, a blocking cornice, and a cast-iron ogee-section gutter beneath a lead-covered dome. The dome itself has a slight ogee profile and is topped by a lead dragon supporter bearing an armorial shield. A curved rear wall to the portico, with a different radius than the portico itself, forms an elliptical space divided into five bays by pilasters supporting a frieze with paterae. Round-headed niches on the upper level of the three central bays originally contained bronzed plaster busts, casts after the antique, although one is now missing. The portico has a stone-paved floor, a fitted wood bench, and low cast-iron railings with a gate to the central bay. Single-bay wings, slightly set back, flank the portico and feature round-arched sash windows set in shallow round-arched recesses. The portico's cornice is continued over the wings, with blocking cornices topped by recumbent lions looking outwards. A brick cottage to the rear was extensively altered or rebuilt around 1840. The design of the Menagerie is attributed to Lancelot "Capability" Brown for the 8th Earl of Northampton. While Brown's park landscaping plan, dating from 1764, does not depict a building on the Menagerie’s site, a 1760 plan by Robert Adam for park improvements does show a garden temple nearby, albeit one that lacks resemblance to the current structure. The Menagerie represents a notably advanced neoclassical design compared to Brown’s earlier, Kentian-style Dairy.