Castlefacts³

Burghley House

Has been described as a Possible Fortified Manor House

There are major building remains

Name	Burghley House
Alternative Names
Historic Country	Northamptonshire and the Soke of Peterborough
Modern Authority	Peterborough; City of
1974 Authority	Cambridgeshire
Civil Parish	St Martin's Without

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)

Gatehouse 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.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law

Historic England Scheduled Monument Number

Historic England Listed Building number(s)

1127501

Images Of England

50309

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)

347962

County Historic Environment Record

www.peterborough.gov.uk/environment/archaeology/historic_environment_record.aspx

OS Map Grid Reference	TF048060
Latitude	52.6422500610352
Longitude	-0.452140003442764
Eastings	504830
Northings	306070