Burghley House (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of St Martin's Without.
In the historic county of Northamptonshire and the Soke of Peterborough.
Modern Authority of Peterborough; City of.
1974 county of Cambridgeshire.
Medieval County of Soke of Peterborough.

OS Map Grid Reference: TF04830607
Latitude 52.64225° Longitude -0.45214°

Burghley House has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are major building remains.

This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Circa 1555 to circa 1587. One of the largest of the Elizabethan mansions. An earlier house on the site with remains of St Michaels Priory, incorporated in the present house, came into the possession of Richard Cecil between 1508 and 1528. Richard Cecil's son William Cecil Lord Burghley built the mansion. Built of Barnack stone. The hall with double hammer beam roof and the vaulted kitchen are the earliest parts and form the east side. The rest of the house is built around the other 3 sides of a rectangular courtyard. Three storeys, at the corners 3 storey and attic square towers with octagonal turrets with ogee cupolas. (Listed Building Report)

Burghley House was built by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. It was begun about 1556 and completed
in 1587, although work stopped between 1564 and 1577. It comprises four wings of three storeys around an open court and is built of Barnack rag-stone. It is built on the site of an earlier house of early 16th century date which occupied what is now the east side of the inner court and "no doubt some of its walls still remain incorporated in the present building" (PastScape ref. VCH)

Burghley clothes its architectural ancestry in castle design beneath an impressive veneer of classical detailing: its battlements dissolve into rich ornament (Goodall, p. 458)

Comments

Goodall's definition of 'castle' is, perhaps, somewhat broader than many people would be happy with. Included in Gatehouse as a fortified manor house where fortified is used to mean a style of architecture owing something to military considerations although at Burghley these debts are expressed in stylised symbolic ways.
NB. The house staddles the boundary between the parishes of Barnack and St Martins Without. In is listed as in St Martin's Without although the greater part of the house is in Barnack, most of the park is in St Martin's Without CP. It is very close to the Lincolnshire county boundary and the town of Stamford, Linconshire and is sometimes recorded as in that county or as by that town.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1127501
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 347962.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 00018.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Burghley House Preservation Trust Limited
  Wikipedia entry
  The DiCamillo Companion
  Historic Houses Association
Books
- Goodall, John, 2011, The English Castle 1066-1650 (Yale University Press) p. 457, 458
  Medleycot, M., 2011, Research and Archaeology Revisited: A Revised Framework For The East Of England (East Anglian Archaeology Occasional Papers 24) p. 76
  Pevsner, Nikolaus revised Cherry, Bridget, 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire p. 122
  Pevsner, Nikolaus, 1968, Bedfordshire and the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough p. 217-25
  Serjeantson, R.M., Ryland, W. and Adkins, D. (eds),1906, VCH Northamptonshire Vol. 2 p. 523-6 (tenurial history) online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1975 Oct 16, Country Life, Vol. 158
  1953 Dec 3, Country Life Vol. 114
  Gotch, J.A., 1899, 'Burghley House' _Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol. 5 (new series) p. 243-52 online copy
Guidebooks
- Leatham, Lady Victoria, 2000 (3edn), Great Houses of Britain. Burghley House (Heritage House Group)
  Charlton, Rev W.H., 1847, Guide to Burghley House
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Dugdale, Wm (Caley, J., Ellis, H. and Bandinel, B. (eds)), 1817-30 (originally pub. 1655-73), Monasticon Anglicanum (London) Vol. 4 p. 257-66 online copy

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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