Althorp

Listen first. Wind moves through tall oaks, gravel crunches under your shoes, and somewhere across the open parkland a sheep calls out. The air smells of cut grass and damp earth. Ahead of you, a long pale house sits low and calm against the Northamptonshire sky. It does not shout for attention. It simply waits, the way it has waited for many generations of one family.

This is Althorp, the ancestral home of the Spencer family. It sits in the rolling countryside a short drive from Daventry, close to the village of Great Brington. The same family has lived here for more than five hundred years. That kind of continuity is rare, even in England. The rooms you walk through today hold portraits of people whose descendants still sleep upstairs.

The story begins with sheep. In the early sixteenth century, a man named John Spencer bought this land. He was a grazier, a farmer who raised livestock on a large scale. Wool was the great source of wealth in Tudor England, and the Spencers became very rich from it. Their fortune grew from these same green fields that surround you now. In a quiet way, the sheep you hear outside are part of the family history.

Now look closely at the walls of the house. From a distance they appear to be pale grey stone. Here is the first surprise — they are not stone at all. The original house was built of warm red brick. In the late eighteenth century, the architect Henry Holland covered much of it with special tiles called mathematical tiles. These tiles were shaped to look like neat, fine brickwork or smooth masonry. The red Tudor house is still inside, hidden under a later and more fashionable skin.

Before you go in, turn toward the stable block. Many visitors walk past it without a second look, but it deserves one. The stables date from the early eighteenth century and are built in a golden stone with a classical design. Some people think the stables are grander than the house itself. For a family that loved riding and hunting, horses deserved a fine home too.

That love of the hunt carries into the first great room inside, known as the Wootton Hall. It takes its name from John Wootton, an eighteenth-century painter of horses and hunting scenes. His large canvases fill the walls with hounds, riders and open country. Stand in the middle and turn slowly. The paintings show the same kind of landscape that lies just outside the windows.

Althorp is best known for its art. The Picture Gallery is a long room lined with portraits, and it is one of the most important private collections in England. You will find works by famous painters such as Anthony van Dyck and Joshua Reynolds. These portraits show the Spencers and their friends, allies and relatives across the centuries. Look at the clothes, the faces and the poses. Fashion changes from frame to frame, but certain family features seem to repeat.

Here is the second surprise. Althorp once held one of the greatest private libraries in Europe. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the second Earl Spencer collected rare early printed books with real passion. Late in the nineteenth century, the collection was sold. It went to Manchester, where it became a core part of the John Rylands Library. So some of the treasures that once filled these shelves now sit in a city a long way to the north.

The Spencer name connects to many famous families. Over the centuries, Spencers married into other powerful houses, and their family tree links to the Churchills. The family also has a historical connection with the ancestors of George Washington, whose family lived in this part of England. Many Spencer ancestors rest in the parish church of Saint Mary in Great Brington, close to the edge of the estate. The family monuments there continue the story told by the portraits in the house.

For most visitors today, one name matters more than any other. Diana, Princess of Wales, was born a Spencer. Her family moved to Althorp in the 1970s, when her father became the eighth Earl Spencer. She spent part of her youth here before her marriage made her known around the world. After her death in 1997, she was brought home to this estate. Her brother, the ninth Earl, has looked after Althorp since then.

Walk down toward the water. In the gardens, a lake called the Round Oval holds a small island. Diana is buried on that island, and visitors cannot cross to it. The distance is part of the design — it keeps her resting place private and peaceful. On the shore stands a small classical temple, a memorial to her. Many people stand here in silence for a while, looking across the water. Often you will see flowers left by strangers.

On the path toward the lake, notice the oak trees. An avenue of thirty-six oaks lines the way, one tree for each year of Diana's life. It is a simple idea, and it is easy to miss if you walk quickly. The estate also has an arboretum, where members of the family and important visitors have planted trees over many years. Here, the family remembers its history with living things as well as with paintings.

Before you leave, stop and look back at the house once more. Notice the pale tiles, the tall windows and the quiet symmetry of the front. Behind those walls are Tudor brick, Georgian taste and five centuries of one family's life. As you walk back across the gravel, listen again for the wind in the oaks and the sheep in the park. In a way, they were here first, and they are still part of this place.