Aynhoe Park (alternately known as Aynho Park) is a 17th-century country estate consisting of land and buildings that were rebuilt after the English Civil War on the southern edge of the stone-built village of Aynho, Northamptonshire, England. It overlooks the Cherwell valley that divides Northamptonshire from Oxfordshire. The core buildings represent four architectural periods: Jacobean, Carolean and both the early 18th and 19th centuries.
The estate has been owned by RH since 2020. It is the site of their retail and hospitality experience "RH England, The Gallery at Aynho Park", and also the location of an active and renowned white deer farm producing high-end venison.
Up to 1954, it was the family home of the Cartwright family. Since then, it was used for fifty years as a retirement apartment complex, and has for the last twenty years been an events-led, multi-use site.
It has been listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England since September 1953. Its wider grounds form part of a Grade II listed 'Park and Garden'.
History
The estate was purchased in the 17th century by John Cartwright, but the house he built in 1615 was seriously damaged during the Civil War by Royalist forces following the Battle of Naseby. It was rebuilt after the Civil War to the design of Edward Marshall, master mason in Charles II's Office of Works. In 1707, Thomas Cartwright employed Thomas Archer to enlarge the Jacobean building. At the beginning of the 19th century, the house was embellished by Sir John Soane.
Aynhoe Park is a pedimented main block with lower service blocks on each side forming a courtyard. The arrangement dates from the early 18th century when Thomas Archer was commissioned to enlarge the Jacobean house. Archer, who had visited Italy, added unusual late-Baroque detailing, such as the concave surrounds to the central doorways of the service blocks. The middle of the garden front remained largely unchanged since it was built in the 1660s.
The interiors, created by Archer with the exception of the main staircase, have been remodelled. Aynhoe Park has, however, retained the rooms designed by Soane. He was instructed to prepare designs for a thorough remodelling of the interior in 1795—drawings for this work can be seen in the Sir John Soane's Museum in London; but these interiors were never built. Soane did redesign the reception rooms along the garden front in a modest style in 1800–5 and, with the exception of the French Drawing Room, these interiors have survived and illustrate the architect's exploitation of curved surfaces. Soane also created the top-lit staircase with its iron balustrade in the south wing and the "triumphal arches" which link the main block to the service wings. There is an exhibition of Soane's work at the estate, a collaboration between RH and the museum.
The surroundings represent an early formal garden with landscape park. Gardens were laid out by Mr Guilliam 1701–14, and the park laid out 1760–63 by Capability Brown.
Although still owned by the Cartwright family, the estate was leased at the time of the 1861 census to the Australian pastoral pioneer and politician William Forlonge and during the twentieth century was home to Richard Fairfax William Cartwright, JP. The estate was the subject of a series of articles in Country Life magazine by Gordon Nares in July 1953. Cartwright and his only son and heir were killed in a car crash in 1954 (there was also one daughter).
Modern era
Aynhoe Park was acquired by the Country Houses Association in the 1950s, an organisation focused on finding alternative uses for former stately homes too large to be used as a single dwelling. Under the CHA's ownership the main block and service wings at the estate were converted into multiple retirement apartments, and were used as such until the CHA went into liquidation in 2004. The estate was ultimately acquired by event promoter James Perkins in 2006.