Amid the fields of Northamptonshire, Kirby Hall raises its façades adorned with pilasters, half-ruined, open to the sky. It was one of the most elegant prodigy houses of the Elizabethan age — built, ironically, by a favourite of Elizabeth I who, kept at court, hardly ever lived there.
The house of an absent favourite
Begun in 1570, Kirby Hall was completed by Sir Christopher Hatton, a virtuoso dancer who became, legend says, the queen's favourite for the elegance of his steps, and then Lord Chancellor of England. Like all the great courtiers, Hatton wanted a house worthy of receiving the sovereign on her journeys. He made Kirby a jewel of architecture, adorning its courts with giant pilasters and a learned decoration inspired by the Italian and French treatises — among the most refined of the age in England. But the queen's service kept him in London: Hatton, ruined by his court and building expenses, hardly ever enjoyed the house he had built for her.
Grandeur and abandonment
Kirby knew its height under the Stuarts, with fine gardens and royal visits, before slowly declining. Abandoned and then stripped of its roofs over the centuries, the house froze into an elegant ruin: its carved façades still stand, intact in their design, but open to the wind. This partial ruin makes all the melancholy charm of the place — a manifesto of Elizabethan architecture reduced to its skeleton of stone, in which the pure ambition of the Renaissance builders can be read better than in a furnished house.
What to see
- The giant-pilaster façades of the court, a masterpiece of Elizabethan decoration.
- The Great Hall and the carved entrance porch.
- The gardens partly restored (seventeenth-century parterres).
- The atmosphere of elegant ruin, open to the sky.
Did you know?
Sir Christopher Hatton owed his fortune, it is said, to his grace as a dancer: Elizabeth I is said to have noticed him for his elegance at a ball, and his meteoric rise earned him the mocking nickname of the 'dancing chancellor'. But the dance led to ruin: the expenses of court and the building of Kirby (and another house) put him so deep in debt that he died, it is said, heartbroken at owing money to his queen. The finest of houses was thus born of a dance step and ended in debt.
Practical information
Kirby Hall lies near Corby, in Northamptonshire, in the centre of England. It is today a site in the care of English Heritage, whose courts, façades and gardens can be visited. Opening hours and days are liable to change with the seasons; it is best to check them against the official sources before visiting.
Quiz
- Which favourite of Elizabeth I completed Kirby Hall?
- Sir Christopher Hatton
- Robert Dudley
- William Cecil
- What adorns the façades of Kirby's court?
- Giant pilasters
- Mosaics
- Stained glass
- In what state is Kirby Hall today?
- Half-ruined, open to the sky
- Fully furnished and lived in
- Turned into a cathedral