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Belton House is a country house near Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. Today it is owned by the National Trust, and is fully open to the public. The house was built between 1685 and 1688 for Sir John Brownlow. Internally and externally the mansion is considered to be one of the finest examples of Restoration style architecture. During its 300 year history it has been home to the Brownlow family and their descendents the Cust family, who donated the house to the National Trust in 1984. The house retains many of its original furnishings, including plaster work, oriental porcelain, silver. The house is set within formal gardens and a series of avenues leading to garden follies within a greater wooded park.

History

Seventeenth century

The gardens are expansive, measuring 36 acres (14 ha), and semi-formal, with a wide range of features of various periods and styles. Among the more notable are the orangery and the ice house with its lake.

The park is extensive, including valley bottom and hillside land.

Modern

When the Machine Gun Corps was established in 1915, its home headquarters and base training ground were established in the southern part of the park. The flat bottom and rising sides of the Witham valley here, where the river passes between the Lower Lincolnshire Limestone and the Upper Lias mudstone, made it possible to establish ranges and depot close to good communications in the form of the Great North Road and the east coast main line railway station at Grantham. The depot was closed in 1919 and land was restored to its owner, Lord Brownlow, as the process of removing the temporary buildings progressed.

Trivia

• The house featured as Lady Catherine de Bourgh's residence, Rosings Park, in the BBC's 1995 television version of Pride and Prejudice.
• The house was the setting for the BBC's 1988 adaptation of Moondial.

External link

• Belton House information at the National Trust

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1. The National Trust. Belton House. 2006. Page 2. ISBN 1-84359-218-5

• United Kingdom building and structure stubs
• Gardens in England
• Historic houses in Lincolnshire
• National Trust properties in England
• Visitor attractions in Lincolnshire