Building on history
IT lies well within the commuter belt, yet Benington Lordship sits in lovely country, seemingly deeply rural and timeless. The estate is very old indeed, traceable back to Saxon times. Today, an 18th- century brick house and its gardens occupy the site of what had been a classic Norman motte-and-bailey castle. In a rather special way, traces of that fortification erupt here and there, as the pared-down remains of stout, flint walls set above a deep, dry moat, lying immediately east and south of the house.
Down the centuries, Benington Lordship was occupied by various well-connected families through periods of expanding and declining fortune. In the early 1830s, during one of its expansive phases, the substantial house was enhanced withmedieval follies, an early work by the famous Pulham Brothers, whose rockwork and patented composite fake stone launched a family business that achieved enormous popularity throughout the Victorian period. The work at Benington ( COUNTRY LIFE , ) emphasises—and picturesquely enhances—the estate’s connections with its former Norman grandeur.
