Open to visitorscheck opening times and admission before you go
Sir Christopher Hatton finished Holdenby in 1583 as the largest private house in England, built to lodge Elizabeth I — he is said to have refused to sleep there until the Queen had. Charles I was later held prisoner here for five months in 1647. Only a fraction of the Elizabethan mansion survives, but the gardens remain, including an Elizabethan plot that Rosemary Verey planted in 1980, and there’s a falconry centre alongside. It opens on set days through spring and summer.
