A Year of Trust

Update February 2024:

In the four years since I last visited, Lyvedon has both grown and changed.

Whilst the unfinished project of Sir Thomas Tresham still stands on a raised mound overlooking the Northamptonshire countryside, the same as it has done since the 16th Century, the Manor House which had been the Tresham family home is now open to the public and houses an excellent cafe.

Audio tours are still available (although on request on soggy days like today), but the Manor House also has a room explaining the history of the site, and a ‘common room’ on the first floor with vast windows where visitors are welcome to sit and read with a cup of tea.

The longer term plans are apparently to look more into the Catholic-Protestant internal battle which raged inside Tresham for much of his life, cost him 15 years in prison, and ultimately led to him designing the grounds and his ‘garden lodge’ with intricate devotion to his faith.

Would still recommend a dry day for a visit, although failed to take my own advice.

Original post 2019: Lyveden near Oundle, Northamptonshire, is another of these great unfinished projects. Tucked away in the countryside and only accessible by a long and winding road through farmers’ fields, the house looks like a Blitz victim – a shell of a home with the roof missing.

History is littered with great unfinished projects – La Sagrada Familia, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the redecoration of my spare bedroom… Tales of ambition that ultimately outweighed the brief time we are allocated on this planet.

But perhaps more depressing than a bombed home, these walls never had the opportunity to be warmed by family gatherings, fires in hearths or the grand dinners it was dreamed up for.

Incredibly, Lyveden was actually designed to be a summer house (despite being bigger than most homes in Northamptonshire). Sir Thomas Tresham dreamed of having a secret house, a ‘garden lodge’ less than a mile away from his main manor house. The idea was to have elaborate gardens including a labyrinth, orchards and a moat, which guests had to wind their way through to reach the lodge – almost like an adventure in a storybook.

Living in the era of Elizabeth I, Sir Thomas was a devoted Catholic, so the house was to be built in the shape of a cross (in the way churches are), and the stonework of the house was decorated with religious symbolism.

He dreamed that this masterpiece would be used for entertaining, with a great hall and a parlour, as well as a full kitchen in the basement, and a bedroom at the top of the house.

And yet, Sir Thomas was never to see the fulfilment of his vision. He died in 1605, and the project passed to his son Francis. However, that year, Francis joined forces with his cousins and a certain Guy Fawkes to enact the Gunpowder Plot, and died in the Tower of London on 23 December, just months after his father’s death.

The estate all passed to Sir Thomas’ grandson, but the family were unable to grapple with debts and so the house was sold in 1643, but no more was done to it. Therefore, the house looks the same as the day the builders laid down their tools.

Thankfully, it found its way into the hands of the National Trust, who have lovingly restored the gardens, and have put together an informative audioguide which takes you round the unfinished house and gardens. It’s a real change to wandering round grand homes, and you would be wise to go on a dry day.

Verdict: There’s something heart-wrenching about this incomplete dream.