Harlaxton Manor

Harlaxton is first recorded in Domesday Book as Harleston. The current mansion is the second Harlaxton Manor. The first was built on a different site during the 14th century and was used as a hunting lodge by John of Gaunt. By 1619, Sir Daniel de Ligne purchased the manor. The original house was deserted after 1780; it was inherited by Gregory Gregory, and was torn down in 1857.

Nicholas Antram, in his revised Lincolnshire volume of the Pevsner Buildings of England published in 2002, describes the approach to Harlaxton Manor as a "crescendo of effects". From the entrance gates on the A607, just outside of the village of Harlaxton, the drive descends into a valley before crossing a serpentine lake by way of a five-arch bridge. It then passes the kitchen gardens before going through an outer gatehouse. It continues past the stables before entering the cour d'honneur through a second, double, gatehouse, described by Antram as a "pyrotechnic display". The visitor is then confronted by the "towering façade" of the main house. Gregory employed three of the major…