Harlaxton Hall, Grantham, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A mid-19th-century park and gardens with garden buildings by William Burn form the setting for a mid-19th-century house.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Harlaxton Manor, surrounded by grounds comprising roughly 170 hectares, lies 4.5 kilometres south-west of Grantham, 1.25 kilometres east of the village of Harlaxton, and 1.6 kilometres east of Belvoir Castle (see description of this site elsewhere in the Register) in the Vale of Belvoir. The Manor is set into the base of a ridge with the garden terraces on the steep slopes above it to the south, with Harlaxton Wood extending north-east to south-west to the rear of the Manor. The parkland slopes very gently downwards to the north-west. The north-west boundary follows the line of the A607 with the north-east boundary overlooking arable land. The eastern and southern boundaries are marked by perimeter belts of trees from the north-east end of Harlaxton Wood to Swinehill Plantation in the south-west corner of the park. The western boundary abuts the Swine Hill road south of Harlaxton village then continues north along the east side of the village housing to meet the north-west boundary at the junction of the road from the village and the A607. The setting is rural. The old manor house (outside the boundary here registered) lay south of Harlaxton Village, 1.25 kilometres west of the present Manor.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

E Turnor, Collections for the History of the Town and Soke of Grantham (1806)

Country Life, 20 (13 October 1906), pp 522-32; 82 (9 October 1937), pp 374-9; 121 (11 April 1957), pp 704-7; (18 April 1957), pp 764-7

Grantham Journal, 26 November 1949; 8 January 1965; 12 April 1979; 27 October 1989; 2 July 1993; 27 May 1994

H Thorold and J Yates, Lincolnshire, A Shell Guide (1965), pp 75-80

J Murden, Harlaxton Through the Ages (1976)

Anon, Harlaxton College, the British Campus of the University of Evansville, Indiana, A Brief Survey of the Design and Architecture of Harlaxton Manor (1977)

Nottingham Evening Post, 16 May 1980

N Pevsner et al, The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire (2nd edition 1989), pp 362-7

P Boniface, In Search of English Gardens: The Travels of John Claudius Loudon and his wife Jane (National Trust Classics 1990), pp 190-5

Harlaxton Manor, guidebook, (Harlaxton College 1992)

A Mason and M Webb, Harlaxton Manor Gardens, guide leaflet, (around 1993)
Lincolnshire Life, (July 1994)

G Cook, Harlaxton College, The Manor, A Report on the Condition of the Garden Structures (1998)

Sir C G E Welby, A Note on the Manor of Harlaxton and its History (typescript 1937, amended 1977) [copy on EH file]

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1906

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1888, published 1889

Archival items

Harlaxton Manor, near Grantham, Catalogue of the Contents of the Mansion,

Sale catalogue, Messrs Foster 1937 (Lincolnshire Archives)

J Murden, Collection of Harlaxton Papers Deposited in Lincoln County Archives 1066-1981 (no date), (Lincolnshire Archives) 

Description written: April 2000 

Amended: April 2002

Edited: May 2002