Canons Ashby House

Canons Ashby House is a country house of great architectural complexity and historical significance, with origins in the mid-16th century and successive periods of enlargement and embellishment extending into the 18th century. The building began as an H-plan structure in the mid-16th century, was extended around 1590, embellished around 1632, and underwent south front remodelling and other alterations between 1708 and 1710. It is constructed of coursed ironstone rubble and ironstone ashlar with brick and limestone dressings, with tile roofs and stacks of brick and some stone.

The west range facing the Green Court is a five-window frontage of rendered brick, which served as the entrance front until around 1840. It features an early 18th-century central eight-panel double-leaf door in a moulded stone frame with a console keyblock, flanked by plain Doric pilasters supporting a plain frieze, inflected cornice, and broken pediment framing a lead cartouche. To the left is an original blocked 16th-century service door with a four-centred arch head and carved spandrels. To the right and left are three-light leaded mullion and transom windows, with three-light mullion windows to the first floor. The gabled ends break forward and have two twelve-pane sashes to the ground floor with moulded stone sills and plain surrounds with keyblocks—blocked to the left end—and four-light mullion and transom windows with hood moulds to the first floor, with three-light mullion windows in the gables; the mullions are arched to the right wing. A moulded plinth and quoins mark the angles. A first-floor string, fine lead rainwater heads and pipes flank the central bay. Two brick lateral stacks stand to the left of centre, and a central timber cupola with a clock (rebuilt in 1981 to the original early 18th-century design) crowns the composition.

The nine-window south range facing the garden is of rendered brick and four storeys, with a tower to the left of centre featuring an eight-panel door approached by a flight of five steps with shaped angles, a moulded stone surround, console keyblock, and broken segmental pediment. To the right of the door is a five-light mullion window. Three-light arch-mullion windows light the first and second floors, all with hood moulds, and a similar window lights the fourth floor. The tower has a round stair turret with an ogee lead roof and weathervane to its rear left angle beside a brick stack. The remainder of the range is two storeys of ashlar-faced brick, with three bays to the left of the tower and five to the right, all with twenty-four-pane sashes and surrounds as described above. Two-light mullion windows light the basement, and a moulded plinth and storey band run across. The right gable end has a two-light mullion window with hood mould and evidence of a blocked and dismantled first-floor oriel, with a long timber lintel and blocked opening below.

The irregular six-window north range is of brick with two and three storeys and a mezzanine. Two-storey canted bays at either end have mullion and transom windows except to the upper window of the left bay, which is mullioned only. Tall two-light mullion and transom windows to the right of centre light the kitchen, and two twenty-four-pane sashes to the left have stone surrounds as described above. Two- and three-light mullion windows light the ground, mezzanine, and third floors, with a two-light arch-mullion recess to the left of the right end bay just above a moulded plinth. A stepped string is broken by a mezzanine window. Brick and stone ridge stacks crown the range. The left gable end has a second-floor oriel, originally matching the blocked oriel of the south range, with a mullion and transom window and one-light side pieces, a three-light mullion window below, and to the ground floor two blocked first-floor sash windows. The east entrance front is lower than the other ranges and has irregular fenestration. A chamfered carriage arch stands to the right of an arch. Various wood mullion and mullion-and-transom windows and a two-storey double-hipped projection to the left complete this front, with a small brick arched basement doorway. The left side of the arch lacks a plinth. Rubble masonry and irregular fenestration characterise the Pebble Court frontage. A four-centred arched door to the hall stands to the right of centre, approached by a flight of seven steps. Re-used medieval stonework appears to this side of the north range. Plain stone caped parapets finish the building except to the east range.

The interior contains spectacular Jacobean plasterwork and an overmantel in the Drawing Room (the former Great Chamber). Sixteenth-century painted decoration survives in the studio and Spencer Room, and an early 18th-century Painted Parlour. Evidence of an open roof to the hall appears in rooms adjacent to the Brown Gallery, and a possible Long Gallery occupies the top storey of the north range.

Canons Ashby has been the seat of the Drydens since the mid-16th century and was given to the National Trust in 1981.