BOW-tun (as in "take a bow")

England

Northamptonshire

Kettering

52.396412

-0.72407

late 17th century house on Tudor foundations

Fully Extant

Grade I

Grade I

No

C. III, pls. 73, 74, 1725. C. Ivth, pls. 36, 37, 1739.

2.S. Vol. II, p. 91, 1855.

XXV, 162, 198, 1909. LXXI, 322 [Furniture], 1932. LXXII, 596, 626 plan, 649 [Furniture], 1932. LXXVII, 278 [Furniture], 1935. CXLVIII, 654, 624, 684, 1970. CXLIX, 420, 476, 1971. Oct 19, 2011

2.S. Vol. I, 1824.

Yes

Yes

01536-482-308

01536-417-225

Boughton was the silver award winner of the 1st Historic House Awards, given by AA and NPI. Best Loo Award, 2003.

Individual / Family Trust

Private Home

One of the three homes of the Duke of Buccleuch (Bowhill and Drumlanrig Castle are the other two).

Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry, Earl of Dalkeith, Montagu-Douglas-Scott family.

Ralph Montagu, Lord Montagu, Duke of Montagu, late 17th-early 18th century. Brudenell family, 18th century.

Boughton was originally a monastic building purchased in 1528 by Sir Edward Montagu, Lord Chief Justice to King Henry VIII, who began the conversion to a private house.

Rebuilt as it stands today for Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu.

The land on which Boughton House sits belonged to the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds during the Middle Ages. Sir Edward Montagu, Lord Chief Justice to Henry VIII, acquired the Estate in 1528 after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The original modest house was slowly enlarged and built around seven courtyards until the palatial French style additions, starting in 1689, of Sir Edward’s descendant, Ralph Montagu, 3rd Lord Montagu and 1st Duke of Montagu (created duke 1705). Boughton is a calendar house and features seven courtyards, 12 entrances, 52 chimneystacks, and 365 windows. Ralph Montagu married a wealthy widow, Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley (an heiress of the earls of Southampton), and was four times British ambassador to the Court of King Louis XIV and a devoted Francophile. His additions left the House with the sobriquet “The English Versailles.” Ralph was also Master of the Wardrobe to William III -- the King honored him with a visit to Boughton, probably in 1689. When Ralph’s son died without a male heir in 1749, Boughton passed through the female line, first to the Brudenells of Deene Park and then to the dukes of Buccleuch. The Buccleuchs, being Scottish, rarely visited Boughton, leaving it remarkably unaltered until the early 20th century. The walls of the Staircase Hall are covered with monochrome allegorical paintings by Louis Cheron; the artist’s work also graces the Egyptian Hall (formerly the Dining Room), where a ceiling painting of the “Triumph of Bacchus” completes the room. The paneling of the Great Apartment is the work of Roger Davies, 1691-94. The 17th century state rooms are considered among the best preserved of any English country house. Boughton’s exterior is similar in design to the west façade of Petworth House, Sussex. Boughton House is one of Britain’s largest houses (its roof, of Collyweston stone, covers 1.25 acres) and is frequently cited as the best-preserved historic house in Britain still owned by its original family and open to the public.

Boughton is a treasure house, containing probably the finest collection in Britain of 18th century French furniture, with special emphasis on the work of Martin Carlin. In addition, there is a Boulle writing table given to the 1st Duke of Montagu by Louis XIV, and an extraordinary inlaid table attributed to Pierre Gole, and possibly also a gift to Ralph Montagu by Louis XIV. Boughton also has a fine collection of English furniture, with the late 17th century work of Thomas Roberts and James Moore especially prominent. The collection of porcelain is exceptional, with Sèvres (one of the most important collections in Britain) and Meissen particularly well represented. An outstanding pair of silver sconces bearing the royal cipher of Charles II, by whom they were given as a wedding gift to the Duke of Monmouth (Monmouth was the King’s illegitimate son), decorates the Hall, whose ceiling was painted by Cheron in the 1690s. One of the glories of Boughton is the exceptional collection of wonderfully preserved tapestries; the collection includes a Mortlake series of the Elements (circa 1676), the Mortlake “Playing Boys” series of circa 1640, and four Mortlake tapestries after the Raphael cartoons. The Buccleuch Estates have such a large tapestry collection, with many of them coming from Boughton, that a large number are on loan to British embassies the world over, are found in government offices in London, and even hang at Hampton Court Palace. In the 1730s some fittings and furniture from the 2nd Montagu House in London were removed to Boughton House. One of the stars of Boughton is the great 17th century State Bed, given to the Victoria & Albert Museum by the 7th Duke of Buccleuch in 1916. This monumental bed was at Boughton by 1697 and it’s conceivable the bed was a royal object granted to Ralph Montagu from the Great Wardrobe, the department responsible for furnishing the royal houses. In 2003, after being absent from the House for over 85 years, the V&A returned the bed to Boughton on long-term loan. Over 6,000 hours of conservation work had gone into its restoration. The addition of the State Bed restores the late 17th century sense of progression through color and materials at Boughton – something that cannot be experienced anywhere else in England. On display in the House is an important model of a proposed Gothic bridge for the Boughton Estate (never built) by William Stukeley, a friend of the 2nd Duke of Montagu. The paintings collection includes El Greco’s “Adoration of the Shepherds,” Murillo’s “St. John the Baptist,” Annibale Caracci’s “Head of a Youth,” and Kneller’s portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, who married Anne Scott, an ancestor of the Montagu-Douglas-Scott family (the family name of the dukes of Buccleuch). The collection also includes works by Van Dyck, Cuyp, van de Velde, Beuckelaer, Gainsborough, Batoni, Frans Pourbus, Sebastien Bourdon, Solimena, Carlo Dolci, and flower pictures by Monnoyer. Further notable paintings include portraits by John de Critz of the Earl of Southampton, as well as a portrait of the Earl's wife, the Countess of Southampton, in her dressing room, by an unknown artist. The Earl of Southampton was a friend of Shakespeare and a noted soldier. In 1599, during the Nine Years’ War (1595-1603), Southampton went to Ireland with the Earl of Essex. During his time in the Irish wars it was reported to Cecil, the Queen’s virtual prime minister, that Southampton saw most of his active service in bed with a captain Piers Edmunds - he would "cole and hug" his captain in his arms, and "play wantonly" with him. However, Southampton was active during the campaign, and prevented a defeat at the hands of the Irish rebels when his cavalry drove off an attack at Arklow in Co. Wicklow. He was deeply involved in Essex's conspiracy against the Queen, and in February 1601 was sentenced to death. Cecil obtained the commutation of the penalty to imprisonment for life. Southampton served his time in the Tower from February 1601 until April 1603 for his part in Essex’s rebellion. Legend has it that the Earl’s cat, Trixie, made her way across London, walking from Southampton House to the Tower, searching for her master until she found the chimney to his cell, whereupon she climbed down to join him. A more likely story is that Trixie was smuggled into the cell by the Earl’s wife. Trixie kept her master company in his tower cell for approximately two years, until he was released at the accession of James I in 1603. The Earl commissioned a now-famous portrait of himself by John de Critz that prominently features Trixie. The Boughton collection also contains two views of the unembanked Thames at Westminster by Samuel Scott, one of them showing the long-demolished Montagu House. There is also a collection of 40 Van Dyck sketches. Boughton’s collections of 17th and 18th century French and English furniture, tapestries, 16th century carpets, porcelain, and painted ceilings make it one of the most important treasure houses not just in Britain, but the whole of Europe.

The Park was laid out in the Dutch style in the late 17th-early 18th centuries by the Dutch gardener Van der Meulen; early 18th century avenues from this time survive. Also extant is an 18th century Gatehouse in the boundary wall in front of the House. The gardens feature herbaceous borders, a circular rose garden, and a rectangular pond. In the early 21st century the 10th Duke of Buccleuch commissioned Orpheus, an inverted grass pyramid – the first new feature to be added to the Grade I-listed Boughton landscape since the 18th century.

"Les Miserables" (2012).