Ancients of Burghley

Universally admired as one of our country’s greatest treasures, Burghley, in its mellow stone splendour, could not be mistaken for any other house. Its cupolas and distinctive obelisk clock tower rise as an Elizabethan vision from the surrounding parkland and are familiar to countless visitors, not least the thousands who throng there each September for the Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials. But at least as spectacular as the house itself is its setting, the 1,300-acre park with its lake spanned by the imposing Lion Bridge, its rolling pastures, its sweeping vistas and, of course, its trees. Ranging from the majestic to the monstrous, from the ancient to the awesome, the trees of Burghley Park are arranged in clumps and avenues, in spinneys, copses and as splendid outlying survivors of a wood-pasture landscape dating back to the time of the Norman conquest. And while it ostensibly remains a vista of continuity, the parkland in fact is a living thing, constantly changing, evolving and renewing itself.

Many of the older plantings date back to the late 16th century, when the. Commissioned by the 5th Earl of Exeter, who had travelled widely in Europe with his Countess, Anne Cavendish, daughter of the Earl of Devonshire, the park was laid out in what was then the fashionable ‘gridiron’ continental manner.