Burley, Rutland#Burley-on-the-Hill Mansion

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Burley House in the village now overlooks Rutland Water. The first house was owned by Sir John Harington of Exton. On New Year's Day 1596 he produced a performance of Titus Andronicus and a masque written by his brother-in-law Sir Edward Wingfield at Burley.Gustav Ungerer, 'An Unrecorded Elizabethan Performance of Titus Andronicus', Shakespeare Survey, vol. 14 (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 102, 104, 108. Harington's daughter Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford sold Burley to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1620 for £28,000.Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London, 1981), p. 63.

Buckingham produced Ben Jonson's masque The Gypsies Metamorphosed at Burley in August 1621 to celebrate his marriage to Katherine Manners. Nicholas Lanier supervised the music. King James and Prince Charles were present.Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London: Longman, 1981), pp. 63–64. Later in the year, Buckingham requested Scottish fir tree seeds and saplings for the park from the Earl of Mar, and 1624 the Earl of Northumberland sent 1,000 walnut trees.Henry Paton, HMC Mar & Kellie, 2 (London, 1930), pp. 109, 116: Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London, 1981), p. 215.

A new house, designed in the manner associated with Sir Christopher Wren, was built in the 1690sFoundations were laid in 1694 (H. J. Habakkuk, "Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham: His House and Estate", J. H. Plumb, ed. Studies in Social History (1955). by Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham, 7th Earl of Winchilsea, who was to a large extent his own architect and involved himself in the minutiae of construction, but employed Henry Dormer (died 1727) to supervise its building. Nottingham replaced Dormer with John Lumley in 1697.Habakkuk 1955. Before embarking on the project, Lord Nottingham consulted Wren and had measurements taken at Berkeley House and Montagu House in London.Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 3rd ed. 1995, s.v. "Dormer, Henry". The house, in an H-plan, has a pedimented central block and lightly projecting end pavilions, the central house is 200 feet long with fifteen windows. With its symmetrical wings and outbuildings forming a cour d'honneur, and segmental walling linking matching blocks in a larger outer grassed court, it forms one of the most ambitious aristocratic ensembles of the late 17th century.

A dining room was designed for Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, and installed in 1778.A suite of reception rooms designed by Joseph Bonomi for Lord Winchilsea, 1782, were never carried out. (Colvin 1995, s.v. "Bonomi, Joseph", "Johnson, John".).

In 1908 a fire broke out during a party attended by Winston Churchill, destroying the west part of the house.

The mansion was converted into six dwellings by Kit Martin in 1993–98, with a further 22 dwellings on the estate. Previously the estate had been purchased by Asil Nadir in 1991.

File:View of Burley-on-the-Hill House from Rutland Water Nature Reserve - geograph.org.uk - 5532188.jpg

{{Main|Holy Cross Church, Burley}}

File:Holy Cross Church, Burley on the Hill - geograph.org.uk - 1596761.jpg

The church of the Holy Cross, adjacent to the mansion, is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It contains a moving memorial by Sir Francis Chantrey to Lady Charlotte Finch (1820).Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660–1851 rev. ed., 1968, s.v. "Chantrey, Sir Francis: Memorials".

Avro Vulcan XM604 of 9 Squadron crashed at 13:24 on Tuesday 30 January 1968, 20 yards from the house of Geoffrey Eayrs. The Vulcan was inverted when it crashed and totally disintegrated. It was witnessed by resident Colonel Sir Roland Findlay.

It killed four aircrew

• Flying Officer Barry Donald Goodman of Rickmansworth, a radar operator
• Flight Lieutenant Stephen Roderick Sumpter, of Whetstone, London, navigator
• Flight Lieutenant Michael Joseph Whelan, of Enniscorthy (Republic of Ireland), electronics officer
• Flight Lieutenant Alistir William Bennett, of Muswell Hill, radar instructor

Only Michael Whelan was not married. The wife of Stephen Sumpter had a baby two days before.

Pilot Peter Charles Tait, aged 25, of Farlington, Hampshire near Portsmouth, and co-pilot Michael John Gillett, of the Isle of Man, ejected to safety, because only the two pilots had any ejection seats. The pilot landed near the house, and the co-pilot landed in a ploughed field around half a mile away. The pilot called in at the house, having narrowly missed the house with his four-engined aircraft, and asked the house owner if he could make a telephone call.Times Wednesday 31 January 1968, page 2Grantham Journal Friday 2 February 1968, page 1[https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/55959 January 1968 Vulcan crash]

The funeral of Michael Whelan took place in Ireland on 5 February, and the funeral of the other three aircrew was on 6 February at St Nicholas' Church, Cottesmore.

{{main|The Park, Burley-on-the-Hill}}

George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea, lived at the mansion in the late 18th century and used its grounds to stage a number of cricket matches, six of them first-class, between 1790 and 1793.[https://archive.today/20120905170908/http://www.pcboard.com.pk/Archive/Grounds/11/2461_misc.html List of matches] As late as 1814, the venue was used for a Rutland v Nottingham game.

{{Reflist}}

• Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840, 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995

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• [https://web.archive.org/web/20071212033422/http://www.britannia.com/tours/lincs/swlinc19.html Burley on the Hill mansion photo]

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Category:Villages in Rutland

Category:History of Rutland

Category:Civil parishes in Rutland