Burghley House and Gardens reopen this weekend

This weekend, Burghley House and Gardens are reopening.

On Saturday 18 March, Burghley House and Gardens are reopening to the public following their annual winter closure.

Made up of Burghley House, farmland, woodland, and a significant property portfolio, the Estate covers an array of residential, agricultural and commercial properties including hotels, pubs and offices with additional quarries, gardens and allotments as well as the rights to sporting activities. The work of the Estate encompasses the maintenance, management and restoration of this wide variety of property which includes many interesting and historic buildings.

The Estate is centred in the beautiful market town of Stamford in Lincolnshire and spreads to the outlying villages of Pilsgate, Barnack, Collyweston, Easton on the Hill, Barrowden, Wakerley and Morcott, where properties are readily available to let.

Burghley is one of the largest and grandest surviving houses of the sixteenth century and a magnificent example of the great Elizabethan 'prodigy' houses.

Conceived by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I, between 1555 and 1587, Burghley is a testament to the ambition and vision of the most powerful courtier of the first Elizabethan age.

The building period of the house extended over a period of 32 years. We know from the State Papers that the east range was erected in 1555 and work continued on the east and south ranges until 1564. Sir William Cecil had purchased Theobalds Manor, Hertfordshire in 1563 and for a whole decade was fully engaged there in the building of his great 'prodigy' house.

At Burghley in August 1564, Edmund Hall, the surveyor, promised that the south side should be finished by winter. Thereafter, little more work was done until 1575 when the team of masons was reassembled. The west front with its great gate-house (it was originally intended to be the main entrance) was finished in 1577. The north front was completed in 1587.

In the late 17th century, the 5th Earl inserted arched windows on the south front to enclose a gallery and possibly to repair damage caused during the Civil War, when Cromwell's forces subjected the house to a brief bombardment.

When Brownlow, the 9th Earl, inherited in 1754, he promptly employed Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to mastermind the modernisation of the Garden, the surrounding parkland and aspects of the House itself. Brown levelled the roofline elevation of the south front, constructed extensive stables, a fashionable Orangery and a Gothic garden Summerhouse. He also demolished the single storey north-west wing to open up the north courtyard and to give views of the newly planted parkland.

Burghley Estate was endowed to the Burghley House Preservation Trust by the 6th Marquess of Exeter in 1987, who now maintain and run the impressive local attraction.

This year, Burghley House will be paying ode to the memory of the late Baron, William Cecil, with the creation of a new visitor attraction, set to open in April 2023 - a new playground called Hide and Secrets.