Owing to his extravagance and the enormous expenses of a contested
election in 1768, Spencer, the eighth Earl of Northampton, was reduced
to cutting down the timber on the estate, selling his furniture at
Castle Ashby and Compton, and spending the rest of his life in
Switzerland. He actually ordered Compton Wynyates to be pulled down,
as he could not afford to repair it; happily the faithful steward of
the estate, John Berrill, did not obey the order. He did his best to
keep out the weather and to preserve the house, asserting that he was
sure the family would return there some day. Most of the windows were
bricked up in order to save the window-tax, and the glorious old
building within whose walls kings and queens had been entertained
remained bare and desolate for many years, excepting a small portion
used as a farm-house. All honour to the old man's memory, the faithful
servant, who thus saved his master's noble house from destruction, the
pride of the Midlands. Its latest historian, Miss Alice Dryden,[34]
thus describes its appearance:--
"On approaching the building by the high road, the entrance front
now bursts into view across a wide stretch of lawn, where formerly
it was shielded by buildings forming an outer court. It is indeed
a most glorious pile of exquisite colouring, built of small red
bricks widely separated by mortar, with occasional chequers of
blue bricks; the mouldings and facings of yellow local stone, the
woodwork of the two gables carved and black with age, the stone
slates covered with lichens and mellowed by the hand of time; the
whole building has an indescribable charm.
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