According to Fleming Adam acquired permission from Captain Rodney, Northampton's guardian, to look over Castle Ashby in the months prior to Northampton's return from the Grand Tour in 1759. It is likely that these plans were made at this time; they are survey plans, rather than plans showing Adam's intended alterations, as we can see from comparison with Adam's wall elevations for redecorating the great hall (Adam volumes 54/1/56, 29/20, 29/21, 29/22). In these we see the inclusion of screened apses and niches, none of which are shown in the ground floor plan (Adam volume 29/17). Moreover, the plan shows the seventeenth-century arrangement of having a screen across the low end of the hall, and this is not included in Adam's drawings for the redecoration of the room. A modern plan of Castle Ashby can be seen in Pevsner.