Belvoir Castle, Grantham, England

kitchen garden

Feature created: 1800 to 1833

Ornate, early-19th century, brick-walled kitchen gardens of playing card plan. They are aligned north/south, and measure 220m long by 120m wide.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

icehouse

Feature created: 1830

On the north-west side of the terraces is an icehouse.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

garden house

Feature created: 1834 to 1867

The mid-19th-century gothic Garden House situated 50m north of the walled garden.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

statue

Feature created: 1680

Creator: Caius Gabriel Cibber (born 1630 died 1700)

There are six further life-size statues (Juno, Taste, Smell, Spring, Summer, Autumn), arranged in two curving rows down a steeply-sloping grass slope.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II*

root house

Feature created: 1810

The Duchess' Seat, a splendid hexagonal roothouse, with thatched roof, moss-filled walls, and rustic furniture.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

kennels

Feature created: 1802

On the west bank of Upper Lake are the Kennels of the Belvoir Hunt, founded in 1740 and always among the country's most prestigious. Four-sided with turrets to the corners, the complex was designed in 1802 to accommodate four packs of hounds.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

dairy

Feature created: 1810

Creator: James Wyatt (born 1747 died 1813)

Dairy Cottage was probably created by James Wyatt as an ornamental dairy. This has an octagonal, two-storey, central block with pavilions to either side.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

stable block

Feature created: 1704 to 1705

Creator: John Barker (born 1688 died 1727)

A U-plan two-storey ironstone stables block.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II*

animal enclosure

Feature created: 1819

An exercise ring, probably the earliest free-standing structure of its kind in England and occupying an important position in the history of hunting.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II*

stable block

Feature created: 1700 to 1733

About 20m north-east of Barker's stables are others of the early-18th century.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

building

Brewery Row, a row of four houses 25 metres south-east of Barker's stables.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

statue

Feature created: 1680

Creator: Caius Gabriel Cibber (born 1630 died 1700)

A statue of Winter stands at the head of an axial path.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II*

mausoleum

Feature created: 1826 to 1828

Creator: Benjamin Dean Wyatt (born 1775 died 1852)

Creator: Philip William Wyatt (died 1835)

The family Mausoleum, a limestone building of 1826-8 in the Romanesque style by Benjamin Dean Wyatt and Philip Wyatt.

Designation status: English Heritage Listed Building Designation Grade II

pool

Swimming pool.

planting

Feature created: 1810

The Duchess', or Spring, Garden, created around 1810 by the Duchess of Rutland. This comprises walks around a natural south-facing amphitheatre-like embayment some 180 metres in diameter, well planted with mature specimen trees, shrubs and other plants.

specimen tree

path

An elaborately stone-balustraded path with urns and rockwork.

pool

Frog Hollow pool lies in the valley between Blackberry Hill and the rising ground of Granby Wood to its south.

lawn

The Battery overlooks a lawn.

terrace

North-east of the Castle, descending the hillside to the stables complex, is a flight of three broad terraces.

ornamental bridge

Feature created: 1800 to 1833

An early-19th-century five-arched stone bridge.

approach

There are numerous approaches to the Castle.

lake

Lower Lake, the more northerly of two sheets of water on the River Devon.

bastion

110 metres south-west of the Castle, is a stone bastion.

terrace

Descending from Castle to stables is a flight of terraces, which survive in simplified form today.

glasshouse

Various glasshouses and other structures, some of 19th-century date, stand outside the north-east corner of the garden.

lake

Upper lake.

labyrinth

Feature created: After 1721

In the vicinity of the later walled kitchen garden, was an extensive geometric wilderness or labyrinth, suggested by Harris (1995, 60) to be the product of garden works recorded at Belvoir for the third Duke after 1721.

summerhouse

statue

Feature created: 1600 to 1699

Seventeenth century Chinese statue of a horse brought to Belvoir in 1831.

garden seat

Stone bench seat.

rose garden

Feature created: 1900 to 1933

Rose Garden with flagged paths and geometric beds.

urn

Feature created: 1600 to 1699

Seventeenth century stone urns along the path were brought from the family home at Chieveley, near Newmarket.

garden building

Feature created: 1810

A wooden, six-bay, thatched cowhouse (now used for timber seasoning), probably contemporary with the dairy.

bastion

The Battery, a 20 metre long bastion-like crenellated projection armed with 18th-century canon, which projects south-west of the Castle to command the main approach from the south-west.

fishpond

300 metres north-east of the Castle are two fishponds.

garden seat

Gothic-arched seat, which overlooks the Statue Garden.

entrance

A highly ornate iron-gated entrance in the kitchen garden, with ornate limestone detailing to the arched surround.

column

A low inscribed column topped with a vase.

gate lodge

Feature created: 1885

The Lodge, an ornate two-storey stone building.