Drayton House

Drayton House is a Grade I listed country house of many periods 1 mile (1.6 km) south-west of the village of Lowick, Northamptonshire, England. Described as Northamptonshire's most impressive medieval mansion by Nikolaus Pevsner, "one of the best-kept secrets of the English country house world" by architectural historian Gervase Jackson-Stops, and (affectionately) "a most venerable heap of ugliness, with many curious bits" by Horace Walpole, the house is generally held to have been begun in 1328. There have been changes to the house in each century since, including works recorded by John Webb, Isaac Rowe, William Talman, Jean Tijou, Tilleman Bobart, Henry Wise, Gerard Lanscroon, John Van Nost, William Rhodes, Alexander Roos, George Devey and John Alfred Gotch. It sits in a park of about 200 acres known as Drayton Park. It has passed only by inheritance since it was last sold in 1361, although this was itself an arrangement within extended family who had been there for nearly 300 years already. It is currently owned by the Stopford Sackville family and has been open by prior written appointment.