Audley End is not often visited: it is somewhat out of the highway of England, but of a surety it will largely repay those who love Nature and appreciate Art, and who rejoice that one of the grandest and most beautiful of our landmarks of family history is yet in its perfection and thoroughly “well cared for.”
BURLEIGH.
“BURLEIGH HOUSE by Stamford town,” as Tennyson has it in his simple and beautiful ballad, “The Lord of Burleigh,” stands in a noble park just outside the fine old town of Stamford. Stamford is in two counties—Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire—on the river Welland, which here divides them, and at the same time separates six parishes, five being in Lincolnshire, and the sixth, St. Martin’s, or Stamford-Baron, in Northamptonshire. In this latter county are Burleigh House and its surrounding demesne. The park for pedestrians is conveniently entered at Burleigh Lane, one of the outer streets of the town; thus the grounds, being so ready of access, are an incalculable boon to the inhabitants. The principal Lodges are on the North Road, immediately south of St. Martin’s, and are noble and important buildings, erected in 1801 at a cost of more than £5,000, by the tenth earl, the approach being greatly improved in 1828 by his immediate successor.
The park, nearly seven miles in circumference, was planted by “Capability Brown,” and besides its attractions of wood and temples, grottoes and other buildings, contains a fine sheet of water three-quarters of a mile in length, spanned by a handsome bridge of three arches, with noble sculptures of lions. The Roman road, Ermine Street, may be traced in some parts of the park on its way from Caistor to Stamford. The park, which contains about fourteen hundred acres, was principally laid out by the first Lord Burleigh, but has been since then considerably extended and improved, one of the greatest improvements being the filling up of the fish-pond, and the formation of the serpentine lake on the south front. The house is a mile distant from the Grand Lodge entrance, the approach being, for a considerable distance, among magnificent oak and other forest trees, through beautiful upland scenery.
In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Burleigh (variously spelled Burleigh, Burghley, and Burley) was let to farm by the Church at Burgh to Alfgar, the King’s chaplain, at whose death it was seized by the Crown, and afterwards redeemed for eight marks by Abbot Leofric, and was confirmed to Peterborough Abbey in 1146. At the time of taking the Domesday survey it was held of the Abbot of Peterborough by Goisfrid. In the reign of Henry III. it is stated to have been in like manner held by Thomas de Burghley, who died in 1280, and remained in that family for two or three generations. “Peter de Burlegh, it appears,” says Sharpe, “held possession here in the twenty-fourth of Edward I., and obtained a grant of free warren in the third of Edward II. Geoffry, his son, succeeded him, but, dying without issue, his widow, Mariot, married John de Tichmersh, who, in her right, held the manor in the third of Edward III., and continued to do so until the twentieth year of the same reign.” Somewhat later it is said to have belonged to Nicholas de Segrave, it “having descended to Alice de Lisle as part of the inheritance of John de Armenters. From Nicholas de Segrave it passed to Warine de Lisle, who, with others, took up arms against the king, was defeated at Borough Bridge, and executed at Pontefract. By Edward III., Gerard de Lisle, son of Warine, was restored to his father’s possessions, and held Burleigh with the other estates.” In 1360, Sharpe states, Burleigh was in the possession of Robert Wykes, one of whose descendants, Margaret Chambers, sold it to Richard Cecil, father of the Lord Treasurer, who also purchased the adjoining manor of Little Burleigh.