Welcome toThe Rothschild Archive'swebsite

Sources for business history: plans of New Court

Sources for art history: Catalogue of the pictures of Alfred de Rothschild 1901

Sources for yachting history: Plans for Nathaniel von Rothschild's yacht Veglia 1905

Sources for natural history: Walter 2nd Lord Rothschild and his zebra carriage: c.1910

Sources for global financial history: Map of lines of the Brazil Railway Company: c.1920

Sources for business history: index cards to bank files

Sources for social history: Rothschild Hospital Paris: 1920s

Sources for business history: detail of a Rothschild bond coupon

Sources for architectural history: Halton House: 1890s

Sources for the history of travel: Lionel de Rothschild's tours of Spain: 1909

Sources for local history: Tring Park: c.1900

Sources for Royal history: shooting party with Edward Prince of Wales: 1893

Sources for political history: Lionel de Rothschild: first Jewish MP: 1858

Sources for sporting history: St Amant winner of the Derby: 1904

Sources for local history: gardeners at Aston Clinton: 1899

Sources for Rothschild family history: Lionel de Rothschild's yacht Rhodora: 1927

Sources for London history: entrance to New Court: 1965

Sources for design history: plans for Lionel de Rothschild's Rolls-Royce: 1930

Sources for business history: Rothschild gold bars produced by the Royal Mint Refinery: 1930s

Sources for business history: letters of August Belmont Rothschild Agent in New York: 1860s

Exhibition - Rothschild Gardens

8: Ashton Wold, Northamptonshire

According to family tradition, Charles Rothschild (1877-1923), son of Nathaniel, 1st Lord Rothschild of Tring fell in love with the Northamptonshire countryside where he was searching for butterflies. He was particularly struck by an empty Elizabethan house, which by good forturne turned out to belong to his father Natty and which Charles persuaded his father to make it over to him. However the house was in a hollow and so deemed bad for the health. Charles accordingly commissioned the architect William Huckvale, who had worked on Rothschild properties at Tring, to build him a new house and at the same time rebuild the village nearby. Huckvale designed a rambling, Tudor-style manor house with a succession of gables and very large and pretty Elizabethan windows. 

The gardens at Ashton Wold

Charles was styrongly influenced by the grandeur and luxury of the hothouses at Tring park where he grew up. At Ashton he began by engaging 14 gardeners, and a head gardener trained at Tring. The orchid houses at Ashton were famed and the pure white Cattleya which Charles gave to his father for his 70th birthday in 1910 was considered a miracle.

Charles considered himself a naturalist, rather than a horticulturist, and made many collecting expeditions around the world in pursuit of seeds and plants. A pioneer of environmental conservation, he formed the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves in 1912.

Charles' wife Rozsika (1870-1940) was a creative gardener and under her hand Ashton was endowed with grass lawns and paths, cascades of roses, banks of flocks, Virginia creepers, tea roses, over 200 yards of herbaceous borders, walls full of alpines and a water garden seemingly perpetually in bloom.

Dame Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) inherited the house after her parents’ deaths, and over the next 30 years transformed the gardens into a haven for wild flowers.

Bluebells at Ashton Wold

Bluebells at Ashton Wold