Monument record 1633/3 - Gardens at Lyme Hall

<1> Harris J, 1979, The Artist and the Country House: A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain, 1540-1870, /143 (Book). SCH3049.

Substantial remains of an Elizabethan or Jacobean formal garden survive to the east of the Hall. A series of flat grassed terraces rise up the hill. The last is flanked by two truncated conical mounds on which two two-storey, cross-gabled summerhouses stood.

<2> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, Turner R C 1988 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

Beyond the earthworks to the east of the house is a regular planting of distinctive lime trees. Two lines or clumps of four trees partially survive, framing the view towards the Lantern, erected in 1727. A triple-tiered circular terrace sits higher up on the hill slope.

<3> English Heritage, 2001, Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, 1985 (Report). SCH2822.

Garden of six ha first formed in the 17th century in formal style. Running south of the hall is the remains of a lime avenue of the same date which ended in a similar summerhouse. The Shepherds Cottage which survives at SJ95688150 is of this type. A 19th century terrace garden to the west of the Hall overlooks an Italian or Dutch garden and orangery of 1814.

<4> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 1996, Lyme Park Nusery Gardens, Cheshire: Archaeological Evaluation, R2145 (Client Report). SCH2036.

Archaeological evaluation undertaken in March 1996 of the former nursery gardens at Lyme Park, Cheshire, in advance of the development of a car park. The evaluation was one element of a major landscape survey of the park. The aim of the evaluation was to establish the historic development and use of the gardens, as well as the survival of any earlier phases of this development. It comprised three elements: a documentary study, a topographic study and a trial trenching programme.

The form and character of the garden is clearly identified by both the 1947 Stockport Borough Council nursery gardens plan and a vertical aerial photograph dating to 1946. The excavations have confirmed the accuracy of the 1947 plan and have demonstrated the sub-surface survival of the primary garden features, in particular the paths. No evidence for a pre-garden phase or earlier features were identified which is reinforced by the fact that the artefactual material is exclusively of 19th and 20th century date.