Ashridge Park, Buckinghamshire
Historical Description
Ashridge Park, the seat of Earl Brownlow, on the border of Bucks and Herts, adjacent to the L. & N.W.R., 3½ miles N of Berkhampstead. A monastery of the order of Bonhommes was founded here in 1283, by Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Cornwall, and put into high celebrity by means of an alleged ' portion of the blood of Christ, which he brought to it from Germany. Edward I. kept Christmas and held a parliament in the monastery in 1290. The Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen Elizabeth, received a grant of the place, and resided in it; and she was taken prisoner hence to London on the charge of being a party to Wyatt's conspiracy. The church was destroyed in Elizabeth's time; the great hall and the cloisters stood till 1800, and only the crypt of the monastery now remains. A new mansion was built in 1808-14, after designs by Wyatt, and " is a varied and irregular line of towers and battlements, arched doorways, mullioned windows, corbels, and machicolations, with a turreted centre, fine Gothic porch, and beautifully proportioned spire, surmount" ing the chapel," and it contains fine statues, ancient brasses, choice paintings, and other objects of interest. The property was given by Elizabeth to her Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Baron Ellesmere, and passed through the Earls and Dukes of Bridgewater to Earl Brownlow.
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Buckinghamshire is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Ashridge Park are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Buckinghamshire papers online: