Ashfair

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Ashfair was a country house in Shropshire, close to the town of Clun, and formerly the principal residence of Jonathan Strange who had it from his father Laurence Strange.

When Laurence Strange himself first inherited it (c. 1780) he found the house in some disrepair, but his marriage to a wealthy Scotch heiress enabled him to restore it [14]. At the time of the events of the book it was evidently a large and comfortable building and the first house of the neighbourhood, but not of elegant or modern appearance. Strange's friend Henry Woodhope criticised it for its architectural irregularities - too many gables, low ceilings, oddly-shaped rooms - and also for the position of the stable-yard, which, as it lay between the house and its pleasure grounds, he considered badly-placed. Even Strange himself, though very fond of Ashfair, thought of it as "old-fashioned" [43]. From these hints, and the description of the hall as being stone-flagged and panelled in elmwood [44], it seems likely that Ashfair was of late-Medieval or Elizabethan origin and had been added to over many generations.

After Strange's disappearance Ashfair also vanished, along with Strange's London house in Soho-square. Both residences presumably joined Strange in his new abode within the Eternal Darkness[69].