Monument record 112/1/4 - The Lower Garden

Part of the unfinished gardens at Lyveden begun in 1596 by Sir Thomas Tresham. Much disturbed by 20th century ploughing

{1} "….terrace of garden still remains & walk leading to house planted with witch-elms; on north side seemeth to have been a moat…."

{2} Formal gardens of 12ha to south of Lyveden Old Bield; they were begun in 1596 by Sir Thomas Tresham but were unfinished when work ceased in 1605; garden is in 3 parts; terracing of Lower Garden has been largely destroyed;

{3} The unfinished gardens at Lyveden New Bield were begun in 1597 by Sir Thomas Tresham. They are of great interest from an archaeological point of view. Not only do the canals, terraces with triple level paths, great circular mounds with spiral walkways and mounds of double truncated pyramidal form all still survive under the protection of modern copses, but other forms of archaeological investigation have added greatly to the picture. For though part of the gardens has been destroyed by modern cultivation, air photographs taken before this occurred show clearly that when the construction work came to an end, some of the half completed terraces lay on top of medieval plough ridges. More interestingly, the modern destruction, when combined with later air photography, revealed new and unknown details. In the centre of the intended garden air photographs showed two blocks of parallel rows of pits, separated by an axial pathway, all visible as crop marks. These pits are the holes for the trees of the great ‘wilderness’ or orchard, which was meant to divide the garden into two parts. Fig 7.

{4} The site comprises the unfinished remains of an elaborate garden with terraces, mounds and moats which was constructed by Sir Thomas Tresham between 1597 and 1604.

{6} Earthworks and ponds of a large formal garden begun in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Tresham, the focal point of which was the New Bield, a banqueting house whose plan and decoration proclaimed its builder’s Catholic adherence.
The garden remains are elements of an original scheme 170m wide and at least 530m long, orientated north/south with the Old Bield at the north-west corner and projecting east at the south-east corner to include the New Bield and the garden which surrounded it. When first described in detail, by C C Taylor in 1972 (Archaeol J), the gardens were divided into three (Upper, Middle and Lower) for descriptive purposes. The Lower and Middle Gardens are aligned on the Old Bield.
The northernmost section of the garden, the Lower Garden, is a rectangular area 170m x 400m. Only the major elements have survived C20 ploughing (it remained under arable cultivation in the later 1990s), although other elements, now largely ploughed out, have been observed on earlier air photos. On the lower, flatter slopes east and south-east of the Old Bield were six long, low scarps cutting across ridge and furrow, interpreted by Taylor as the main divisions of an unfinished formal garden. To the south of the site of these minor scarps is a larger one, 2m high, which returns south at its west end, probably the remains of an unfinished terrace intended to separate the two halves of the Lower Garden. Above this, on the gentler northern slope, air photos show rows of pits, presumably for trees or bushes, either side of a central, axial path.
Taylor suggests that work may have stopped soon after because of Tresham’s financial commitments elsewhere. Even if so, it would seem unlikely that his son Lewis would have left the gardens unattended when, probably c 1615, he began to transform the Old Bield.

{7} Trial excavation identified a rectangular platform that was likely part of the landscaping started by Tresham. To the north was a large ditch, probably dug in the mid 17th century to intercept water flowing down slope, which was noted by KC Brown in his 1932 survey {8}.

Brown, K C, 1935, Lyveden New Building, Northamptonshire (Article). SNN110991.

<1> Bridges J., 1791, The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, p.372 (unchecked) (Book). SNN77326.

<2> English Heritage, 1984, Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England (1984, Northamptonshire), (checked) (Report). SNN46781.

<3> Taylor C., 1983, The Archaeology of Gardens, p.46-7 (checked) (Series). SNN41440.

<4> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1975, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.8 site 22 (unchecked) (Series). SNN77379.

<5> Brown, AE & and Taylor, CC, 1973, The Gardens at Lyveden, pp.154-60 (unchecked) (Journal). SNN55282.

<6> Stamper P., 2000, Lyveden New Bield (Register of Parks & Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England), (checked) (Report). SNN106559.

<7> Prentice, J & Soden, I, 2017, Archaeological investigation of the putative lower garden terraces at Lyveden, Northamptonshire, 2017
2017 (Report). SNN110990.

Record last edited

Jun 5 2018 3:09PM