Princely re-creation - Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire, part I A seat of Baron and Baroness von Pfetten

In the first of two articles, Jeremy Musson celebrates the spectacular renewal of one of England's great Jacobean houses

- Jeremy Musson

Apethorpe Palace, built in warm, golden stone, with its clustered gables, mullioned windows and tall stone chimneys, strikes the eye almost as a small town. Arranged around three courtyards, this great residence has grown incrementally over time (Fig 1). As will be described in next week's article, a medieval manor house was massively extended in the early 17th century to accommodate royal hunting parties and further remodelled in the mid 18th century, before its adaptation in the early 1900s by Reginald Blomfield. Since 2014, it has been subject to an exemplary programme of repair and refurbishment by Baron and Baroness von Pfetten and it is now once more a family home, for the first time since the 1930s, for them and their two young children, Charlotte and Maximilian. With its historic rooms once more elegantly decorated and furnished, this article coincides with the formal removal of the property from Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register.