An Elizabethan Sculpture Garden of Surprises

photos: Dominic Rivetti

A visit to the Garden of Surprises at Burghley House, while in the Stamford area, in my home county of Lincolnshire, England, was at the top of my list of things to do while visiting my parents, this summer.

Built and mostly designed by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I, between 1555 and 1587, the historic, fallow deer-studded parklands of Burghley House were laid out by Capability Brown. 

It had been several years since I'd last visited Burghley, famed today for its annual autumn horse trials. In keeping with the best of the National Trust's British stately homes, a stunning program of seasonal events have been more recently added to Burghley's roster, complimenting the most significant addition of an extensive, rambling, contemporary sculpture garden and its delightful, bordering Garden of Surprises. 

“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” - Thanks Mr. Shakespeare for this succint little encapsulation of my thoughts exactly, whilst stepping back into the bounty of Burghley. 

In the 16th century the 1st Lord Burghley was, by all accounts of history, a most passionate gardener and employer of naturalists, collectors, travelers, gardeners, the Tradescants.

Diarists of the day noted one of the original Lord Burghley's gardens as containing “divers conceits, obelisks of many materials and a lead pond which was pleasant for bathing in the summer, as well as Caesars heads contained in a circular building with a table made from ‘touchstone’”.

With this in mind,  Burghley's more recent addition of a Garden of surprises was inspired by this, much earlier Elizabethan garden, featuring a moss house, swivelling Caesar busts, basins of water, jets and a mirrored maze.

 “‎W. H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time: to understand your own century you need to have come to terms with at least two others. The key to learning something about the past might be a ruin or an archive but the means whereby we may understand it is--and always will be--ourselves.” Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England - A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century.

“There, Clover found the "gardens and great trees and old cottages...so beautiful" that seeing them exhausted her. It was as if, she joked with her husband, "this English world is a huge stage-play got up only to amuse Americans. It is obviously unreal, eccentric, and taken out of novels.” Natalie Dykstra

Film Festival, Horse Trials, Fine Food Market, Big Fairy Picnic, Candle Light Tours bring visitors back to Burghley time and again, but it is the new Beastly Boring Tours  that I would have liked to have experienced, had time permitted.

I've toured many a National Trust property with kids in tow and this seems to me, a brilliant way to capture the attention and imagination of young visitors.Beastly Boring Tours take place at Burghley every day of the summer holidays at 10am  from Monday 22nd July to Saturday 31st August (excluding Fridays and Sundays). Families are guided around bycostumed guides to find out all the grizzly gruesome and horrible history associated with Burghley and the fascinating people who have lived there. Admission is free with a house and gardens ticket for the day.

Burghley is a mile from Stamford and 20 minutes north of Peterborough on the A1.

From the South:

Take the Carpenters Lodge exit on the A1 signposted to Burghley House, turn left on to the B1081 towards Stamford.

Follow the road alongside the park wall and the impressive Bottle Lodges entrance gates down towards Stamford.

Turn right just past the Bull & Swan Pub and continue for one mile along the Barnack Road (B1443). You will see the Visitors Entrance on the right.

From the North:

From the North follow the A1 south past Doncaster and Grantham.

Approximately 30 minutes south of Grantham you will reach the Stamford junction labelled Carpenters Lodge and sign posted to Burghley House.

Turn left towards Stamford.

Follow the road past the estate wall and the impressive Bottle Lodges entrance gates.

Just past the A43 on the left, turn right past the Bull & Swan Public House and continue for one mile along the Barnack Road (B1443). You will see the Visitors Entrance on the right.