The secrets of Britain’s stately-home capital
It’s said that Sir Christopher Hatton – a favourite of Elizabeth I – was the finest dancer in England; he first caught the Queen’s eye at a ball, performing a vigorous galliard. Could he have matched Barry Keoghan’s, er, liberated moves in the Netflix movie Saltburn? Who knows. But I like the idea of the ‘Dancing Chancellor’ gyrating through the halls of Holdenby, the Northamptonshire pile he built in case Elizabeth came to visit (which she never did).
Holdenby House – now an eighth of its original immense size, but still magnificent – is just one of Northamptonshire’s multifarious stately homes. Sitting on a rich belt of limestone, dissected by the main north road and close enough to get to court if you wanted, but get away if you didn’t, this county of “spires and squires” – though largely bypassed by the staycation masses – is believed to have more such homes than any other.
“Around 55, depending on how you categorise them,” reckons Laura Malpas of the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum. And only one – Canons Ashby – is run by the National Trust; many are still home to descendants of the families that built them. So it’s no surprise that when director Emerald Fennell was seeking an unknown property to play Saltburn – the eponymous house at the centre of her riotous class satire – she ended up here.
Filming took place at Drayton House, a highly secretive Baroque manor, not open to the public. “I’ve worked in heritage for 25 years and I’ve never got a sniff in there,” Laura says. However, despite remaining largely privately owned, most of Northamptonshire’s finest homes do welcome visitors, if only on limited dates.
Indeed, far from closing off for languid summers of murder and mayhem, they give tours of their laundries, host ABBA tribute bands and reenact the Battle of Naseby. This is partly because they want to share and contextualise their homes, according to Laura: “If heritage is going to survive, it has to stay relevant”. And it’s partly because they can’t afford not to.
“On a beautiful day, you walk around and feel so lucky,” Holdenby’s current owner, James Lowther, tells me. “Then I see the bills and go into a deep gloom…”
According to the Historic Houses Association, a cooperative of 1,400-plus independently-owned properties in Britain, its members’ backlog of repairs is estimated at ￡2 billion. Keeping these places standing is a constant battle; money is spent on sorting dry rot and specialist sweeps to clean medieval chimneys, not on wild Saltburn-style parties.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy it,” James adds. His home is, after all, extraordinarily beautiful, with Grade I-listed gardens and over 500 years of stories. For instance, Charles I was held under house arrest here for five months in 1647. “We’ve put a plaque to mark where he stood when Cromwell’s men took him away,” James says. “You can stand there yourself. You never get used to that feeling.”
Holdenby has been used for filming – it was Satis House in the BBC’s Great Expectations. But it’s Deene Park, a gorgeous Tudor-Georgian mansion, once home of 7th Earl ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ Cardigan, that has a Saltburn claim to fame. “We’re the one in the film that is open to the public,” says Charlotte Brudenell, current owner of Deene.
“Drayton ain’t got a lake!” (They used Deene’s for the movie’s stone-throwing scene.) The Brudenells saw Saltburn at the cinema; they stayed to see if they were in the credits and got locked in.
“I know lots of people who live in houses like that who are not like that,” Charlotte insists. “We’re all struggling to keep the roof on. Frivolity and flowing champagne are not part of it.”
Maybe they’re not now. But Deene has many good stories in its back catalogue. Like those of Adeline, second wife of the 7th Earl, who liked to shock visitors by climbing into a coffin and asking to be admired; her gossipy memoir, My Recollections, dished the dirt on the aristocracy’s gambling habits and love affairs.
Then there are the finds. In the 1970s, an estate inventory unearthed a copy of Magna Carta (it was sold for $1.5 million). Less lucrative, Charlotte recently found some, ahem, pigskin prophylactics, dating to 1900 – “they’re enormous!” she says.
These are the kinds of details we love nowadays: the dirty secrets, the mad relations, the maintenance travails. “Yes, you visit to see the art but also to see the lives lived,” agrees Charles Lister, property manager at Boughton House. “People are looking at history in different ways, and are inspired by TV and film.”
Boughton was built in 1528 and extensively expanded in 1695 by the Duke of Montagu, who sought to bring French flair to the British countryside – it’s known as the ‘English Versailles’. Les Misérables and, more recently, Napoleon, were filmed here. It’s exciting, but challenging, making sure the house is protected, Charles says.
Boughton was essentially mothballed for 200 years, escaping the damaging modernisations of the Victorian period, and is thus one of Britain’s best-preserved stately homes. It has a valuable art collection and, in 2024, the Louis Chéron ceilings in the State Rooms will emerge from an extensive restoration.
“We only open on select dates, mainly for conservation reasons,” Charles explains. “A person gives off the heat of a 100w bulb, breathing increases humidity. We want people to enjoy the place, but sustainably.”
James Saunders-Watson opens Rockingham Castle at least 50 days a year. He admits it’s nice to have his astonishing home to himself sometimes, but that, ultimately, “these places need to be loved”. Continuously inhabited for nearly a millennium, Rockingham has been home to his family for 450 years. Though he’s perhaps the first generation to be so hands-on. “For our Christmas event, it was so wet we had to close the car park and run shuttle buses. The only staff qualified to drive them were my wife, Lizzie, and I, so we were doing coach tours.”
Rockingham offers a variety of visitors. The gardens are open for snowdrop displays, theatre and a new Dinosaur Day. Inside there are impressive rooms and important portraits, but also a huge amount of 20th-century British art. “My great-uncle was a fanatical collector,” James says. “We have lots of modern pictures hanging in old places.”
This is one of the joys of the private stately home, he reckons. “It’s not pickled in aspic, you get the full colour of the story, the people, the thread of life.”
Even if, now, that story tends to be less about billionaire debauchery, and more about how you pay the heating bill.