Burton Constable, Sproatley, East Yorkshire, England

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

Park and gardens laid out around 1769-82 to designs by Lancelot Brown retaining elements of an existing late 17th- or early 18th-century layout, with a formal garden of early 19th-century date.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Burton Constable lies about 11 kilometres north-east of Hull, about 2 kilometres north of the village of Sproatley. The roughly 300 hectare site is situated on the plain of Holderness in a setting which is rural and agricultural. The boundaries are generally fenced and are formed by Pasture Lane, Brickfield Plantation, Crook Lane and Engine Lane on the east side, Sandpit Belt to the south, and Wycliffe Plantation, Old Wood, Bigland's Belt and Sallymere Plantation on the west side. North Plantation runs along the north boundary. The park conforms broadly with the fields, woods and parkland shown on the 1621 estate map.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 171 (22 April 1982), pp 1114(17; (29 April 1982), pp 1198-1202; (6 May 1982), pp 1278-81; (13 May 1982), pp 1358-61

Garden History 14, no 1 (spring 1986), pp 6-27

D Neave and D Turnbull, Landscaped Parks and Gardens of East Yorkshire (1992), pp 22-6

Burton Constable, guidebook, (I Hall and the Burton Constable Foundation 1994)

N Pevsner and D Neave, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire The East Riding (1995), pp 371-7

Maps [Unless otherwise stated, all the estate plans, or copies of them, form part of the Burton Constable Collection.]

W Senior, Burton Constable, 1621

Plan of landscaping around the stables, no date, ascribed by William Constable to 'Mr Lightoler' (reproduced in Garden History 1986, 10)

Plan of landscaping for the pleasure grounds, no date, ascribed by William Constable to 'Mr Lightoler' (reproduced in Garden Hist 1986, 10) Burton

Constable Proposals, 1755

Plan, 1767

L Brown, Plan of garden area, around 1769 (in Neave and Turnbull 1992)

Plan, 1774

Burton Constable Survey, 1775

Survey Plan of the Park at Burton Constable, around 1779 (reproduced in Garden Hist 1986, 18)

Map of Burton Constable, 1818

Map of Burton Constable, 1827

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1852, published 1854

OS 25" to 1 mile: revised edition published 1910 

Description written: April 1998

Amended: March 1999; December 1999