Burghley House, Stamford, England

In 1702 George London and Henry Wise were responsible for designing the goose foot layout of lime trees in radiating avenues from the house. This is shown on the Haynes plan of 1755. The house was remodelled by Lancelot Brown in 1756, including the layout of the forecourt. Between 1754 and 1779, Brown designed a new layout for the park for the 9th Earl of Exeter.

The park today is the largest surviving example of Lancelot ‘Capability' Brown's work in the country. The serpentine lake with a waterfall descending into a dell, the balustrade bridge with Coadestone lions, banqueting house, model farm and gamekeeper's cottage, carriage drive and park layout into Upper, Middle and Lower park are all by Brown. Some of the radiating avenues still remain and individual sweet chestnuts date from the 16th-century planting. The large kitchen garden still has a collection of pear trees. The boathouse on the lake is in course of restoration. Nearby is the family Mausoleum.

The dell garden, originally an arboretum of North American trees, with restored ice house, is now a sculpture park with residence sculptor. The entrance court lawn to the house is edged with hybrid tea roses to the south is a formal yew enclosed rose garden designed by Elizabeth Banks. The Orangery to the east of the house by Brown overlooks a small rose garden with central fountain. The whole park, now 600 hectares, is enclosed by a dry stone wall with several fine entrance gates. In the south-west corner of the park is a golf course, and the park has been further landscaped to accommodate jumps for an annual three-day equestrian event.

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

19th and 20th century formal gardens and pleasure grounds, developed from those originally designed by Lancelot Brown, surrounded by a park of 16th century origin for which Brown provided extensive plans between 1754 and 1777.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Burghley Park lies on the east side of the village of Stamford which sits at the point where the four counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire meet, about 15 kilometres north-west of Peterborough. The site covers an area of about 500 hectares, all enclosed by a park wall. The Great North Road (now partly the A1) runs along the western boundary, the B1443 Stamford to Thorney road bounds the park to the north and the minor county road known as Barnack Drive borders the wall to the south. The eastern boundary is formed by farmland and much of the perimeter of the park is enclosed by plantations. The ground at Burghley is general level from the south boundary to the course of Ermine Street, a Roman road running from north-west to south-east through the south park. It then falls gently to the House and the lake which crosses the centre of the park. The land rises towards the northern boundary and then falls away again towards the River Welland (which is situated outside the area here registered).

REFERENCES

J Hort and Cottage Gardener, (4 January 1872), p 11

The Garden, (11 July 1874), p 27

Gardeners' Chronicle, i (23 January 1892), p 105

Victoria History of the County of Northamptonshire II, (1906), pp 522-526

C Morris (ed), The Journeys of Celia Fiennes (1947)

Country Life, 114 (3 December 1953), p 1828; (10 December 1953), p 1962; (17 December 1953), p 2038; (24 December 1953), p 2104; (31 December 1953), p 2164; 158 (16 October 1975), p 982

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Bedfordshire and the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough (1968), p 308

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975)

Garden History 19, no 2 (1991), pp 128-145

Burghley House, guidebook, (1996)

Maps

J Haynes, An accurate survey of the house, pleasure grounds and park at Burghley ..., 1755 (Collection Centre Canadien d'Architecture, Montreal) [copy held in Estate Office]

J Haynes, Proposal map of the post-Brown park, drawn 1756 (private collection)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1899

Archival items

J Haynes, Series of drawings to accompany the 1755 survey (private collection)

Many of the original documents relating to Burghley House are held in a private collection.

Description written: June 2000

Amended: December 2000

Edited: January 2001