Canons Ashby is built using the remains of a medieval priory in a very rural location with great views, near Daventry, accessed via country lanes near Moreton Pinkney or Blakesley and is off the beaten track. It is an interesting house and garden with a lovely Stables tea room for lunch or tea and a good second hand bookshop and NT shop. It is open most of the year and currently has Christmas through the ages which shows Christmas from Tudor times to 20th century, in the different rooms as you walk through. The entrance hall has a lovely open fire in winter, and was the home of Sir Henry Dryden, with an amazing Jacobean plasterwork ceiling upstairs, a tapestry room, long gallery and some wall paintings plus an atmospheric Tudor kitchen as you leave.
The gardens have been recently restored and are very colourful, and you can play croquet on the lawn in the summer. The remains of the Augustinian Priory are thankfully surviving in the Priory Church opposite the house, and I have been to a Christmas concert there. Plenty of free parking, and a buggy up to the house if you require it.
You can even stay there in a Landmark Trust apartment for 2 in the Tower (it must have great views), and I have been on a behind the scenes attic tour.
