Wothorpe Towers

The lodge was built between 1613 and 1625 for Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, the eldest son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, Lord High Treasurer to Elizabeth I. It was once part of the Burghley House estate and as such was eclipsed by the famous seat of the Cecil family. According to Thomas Fuller, Exeter built Wothorpe Towers as a lodge "to retire to out of the dust while his great house was a sweeping". Little else was recorded of its history. William Camden referred to it as a "handsome seat" surrounded by a "little park wall'd about", but there were no contemporary reports detailing its interior. After Exeter's death, the Towers were leased to the Duke of Buckingham. From…

At the cusp of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture, Wothorpe Towers exhibits "the gradual hardening process that changed the free and light-hearted treatment of Elizabeth's time into the more formal and laboured work of the middle and end of the 17th century." The tower block is partially enclosed by the listed gateway and stone walls, which rise to about 18 ft in height at the south-east end. The ashlar gateway has a moulded architrave, cornice, and high-stepped gable with oval and circular openings.