the entire contents of the house were sold, never to be recovered. The then Lord Northampton, living at Castle Ashby, ordered Compton Wynyates to be demolished. However the family's land-agent ignored the order and merely had the windows bricked up (to avoid the window tax). So the house remained largely forgotten. Restoration In 1835, the 2nd Marquess of Northampton (the family had been elevated from Earls in 1812) visited Compton Wynyates for the first time and found the house in a ruinous state; he made some minor renovations to prevent complete dereliction. He also employed the architect Sir Digby Wyatt to gothicise the out-of-keeping east front and create a new staircase in the house. This work was a success, and the east front harmonises with the earlier facades of the house. It was the 4th Marquess who had the house fully restored and presented it to his son, the future 5th Marquess, on his marriage in 1884. The 5th Marquess and Marchioness were the first people to reside in the house since 1770. It was this couple who laid out the topiary gardens and made the mansion the comfortable house it is today. Wynates is the birthplace and burial place of Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, considered to be the second Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Today The house today remains essentially the mansion that Edmund Compton and his son William completed within a thirty-year period during the reigns of the first two Tudor monarchs. The 6th Marquess of Northampton (1885–1978) cared greatly for the house and spent a few months each year at Compton Wynyates. It was he who installed the electricity and water supplies; however, his principal home always remained Castle Ashby. For a short time the panelled rooms of Compton Wynyates were open to the public: the chapel overlooked by the chapel drawing room, the King's bedroom, the heavily panelled drawing and dining rooms with their moulded plaster ceilings, and works of art, such as the crucifixion by Matteo Balducci, were on limited public display. On the succession of Spencer, 7th Marquess of Northampton, it was decided that in order for the family to survive the 20th century, Castle Ashby would have to be heavily commercialised. This was achieved and the Marquess and his family returned to make Compton Wynyates their sole country house. However, in the 21st century Castle Ashby was closed to the