Deene Park: The Brudenell Family’s Country House in Northamptonshire
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, English
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page9 sections
History
Deene Park is a country house in Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. Its hall dates to the fourteenth century, and the Brudenell family has held the estate as its seat since 1514.
Abbey ownership and the Brudenell library
The manor belonged to Westminster Abbey, a London church that was also a Benedictine monastery. An annual rent of £18 continued to be paid to the abbey until 1970. In the sixteenth century, Sir Thomas Tresham and his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Brudenell, later the 1st Earl of Cardigan, assembled the Brudenell library.
The Earls of Cardigan
Seven members of the Brudenell family held the title Earl of Cardigan. The seventh earl, James Brudenell, led the Charge of the Light Brigade, a cavalry assault during the Crimean War (1853–1856), at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. He died without children in 1868, and the earldom then merged with the Marquessate of Ailesbury, a higher rank in the British peerage.
Succession and later generations
After the seventh earl’s widow died in 1915, the estate passed to descendants of his second cousin, Ernest Brudenell-Bruce, 3rd Marquess of Ailesbury. Their family line included Commodore Lord Robert Brudenell-Bruce of the Royal Navy and his son George, the father of Edmund Brudenell. George inherited Deene Park and the family’s remaining estates in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, and restored the Brudenell surname by Royal Licence, formal permission from the Crown to change a surname.
Edmund and Marian Brudenell led the rehabilitation of Deene Park and were largely responsible for its present appearance. Their son Robert inherited the estate in 2014. The house is Grade I listed, England’s highest category for buildings of exceptional architectural or historic interest.
Remains
The courtyard house and Great Hall
The manor house is arranged around a courtyard and developed from a sixteenth-century core, represented by the Great Hall. The hall has screen panelling and a fireplace installed in 1571.
Rooms and collections
The early nineteenth-century Bow Room contains the Brudenell library. The house also holds furnishings from different periods and portraits by Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Its objects associated with the Crimean War include Lord Cardigan’s uniforms and the head and tail of his horse, Ronald.
Gardens
The large gardens, designed by David Nightingale Hicks, include a patterned parterre overlooking a lake and a newly planted avenue.
St Peter’s Church
St Peter’s Church stands within the grounds and contains funeral monuments to members of the Brudenell family.
