Hidden away on a sprawling countryside estate in Northamptonshire, the Fawsley Dower House was lived in by one of King Henry VII's knights and that's not the only fascinating part of its history.

It is considered to be the first Tudor red brick building ever constructed in the county - and one of the first in the UK.

Uninhabited for over 300 years, it fell into disrepair and was at risk of being lost.

But now vital restoration work has been carried out which has secured it for future generations.

The Dower House sits on the sprawling Fawsley estate, around three and a half miles south of Daventry.

The development of the estate, whose centrepiece is the Grade I listed Fawsley Hall, began in 1416 when Staffordshire lawyer Richard Knightley became lord of the manor.

It was his grandson Richard, who was knighted by King Henry VII, who set about building the earliest part of the house, the South Wing.

Sir Richard's son Edumund Knightley, was a a key player in the dissolution of the monasteries and was himself knighted by Henry VIII and who granted him the manors of Stoke and Newham. It was he who commissioned the building of the Elizabethan Hall inside the main house, so named as it was visited by Elizabeth I in 1575.

The Dower House was built for Sir Edmund's wife Lady Ursula shortly after his death in 1542. It is located around half a mile from the main Fawsley Hall, which is now a hotel and spa, and St Mary's Church constructed in the 13th century and where many of the ancestral Knightley family are buried.

Located in an isolated and secluded spot in the middle of the estate, it was built as a hunting lodge, and is a small, H-plan house made out of Ironstone ashlar and brick.

It had two ranges, the earlier front range made of brick with ironstone dressings and later a back range, completing the H, of ironstone.

The front range has a polygonal brick tower in the middle of the long side with first floor moulded brick and stone string with deep hollow moulding, and battlemented parapet.

"This may represent the first example of the use of brick in the county" say Historic England with other, albeit disputed, claims that it is one of the earliest examples anywhere in the UK.

The hall and Dower House passed to Sir Edmund's son Richard Knightley after his death and he ran a secret printing press at the house on which Puritan pamphlets and for which he was briefly imprisoned.

It was then passed down through the Knightley family and by virtue of marriage it passed to the Gage family of Sussex, who still own the Dower House and surrounding lands, in 1938 after the death of the last Knightley heirs.

Fawsley Hall, not owned by the Gage family but by Hand Picked hotels, was turned into a hotel in the late 1990s and is now a popular wedding venue.

The Dower House, which was last inhabited in 1704, had fallen into a state of disrepair with parts of the roof and walls missing.

The estate was used as storage and for agricultural industries during and after the Second World War which is said to have contributed to its decline.