• Source: Lyddington Bede House

Lyddington Bede House (or Lyddington Bedehouse) is a historic house in Rutland, England, owned and opened to the public by English Heritage. The existing Grade I listed building is a part of a former palace of the Bishops of Lincoln, later used as an almshouse. It is next to St Andrew's Church in the village of Lyddington. The watch tower or gazebo is separately listed as Grade I and the boundary walls are Grade II. The site is a scheduled monument.




History


The medieval Diocese of Lincoln was the largest bishopric in England, extending from the River Thames to the Humber Estuary. Lyddington lay on a north–south road and the estate here was a convenient place for the bishop's entourage to stop when traversing the diocese.
After the Reformation, ownership passed to the Cecil family who made it their private house. By 1600 it had passed to Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, son of Lord Burghley, who converted it into an almshouse for twelve poor bedesmen and it continued in this use until 1930. A feature is the former bishop's Great Chamber with its carved ceiling cornice.
The Bede House is a Grade I listed building, and the wider site is a Scheduled monument.




= Watchtower

=
The Watchtower, or "Bishop's Eye", is a two-storey tower set into the garden wall of the palace. Its purpose is uncertain; although its name suggests a defensive intention, it is considered more likely to have been constructed for leisure. Elizabeth Williamson, in her Lincolnshire and Rutland volume in the Pevsner Buildings of England series, revised and reissued in 2003, describes it as a "summerhouse", and the Historic England listing record refers to it as a gazebo. The tower has its own Grade I listing, while the walls into which it is set are listed at Grade II. The remains of the fishponds of the bishop's palace are nearby.




Lyddington Bishop's Palace and Bedehouse gallery






Nearby English Heritage attractions


Rushton Triangular Lodge
Kirby Hall
Eleanor Cross, Geddington




See also: other palaces and residences of the Bishop of Lincoln


Biggleswade
Buckden Palace, Huntingdonshire
Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire
Fingest, Buckinghamshire.
Horncastle, Lincolnshire. Bishop's Palace
Lincoln Medieval Bishop's Palace
London, Camden, Inn of the Bishop of Lincoln, later Southampton House. Purchased from Templars by Bishop Robert de Chesney (1148–68)
Louth, Lincolnshire
Nettleham, Lincolnshire
Spaldwick, Huntingdonshire, Bury Close
Stow, Lincolnshire
Thame, Oxfordshire
Wooburn, Buckinghamshire. Bishop's Palace




Further reading


The Victoria History of the County of Rutland: Volume I, (1908), 118-119
The Victoria History of the County of Rutland: Volume II, (1935), 188-191
Woodfield, C and P, (1993) Lyddington Bede House
Woodfield, C and P, (1982) "The Palace of the Bishops of Lincoln at Lyddington", Transactions of the Leics Archaeological and Historical Society, Vol. 57, 1-16 [1]




References






Sources


Pevsner, Nikolaus; Williamson, Elizabeth (2003). Leicestershire and Rutland. The Buildings of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09618-7.




External links



Lyddington Bede House - official site at English Heritage

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Lyddington Bede House
• Lyddington
• List of country houses in the United Kingdom
• Rutland
• Beadsman
• St Andrew's Church, Lyddington
• List of almshouses in the United Kingdom
• List of English Heritage properties
• Lincoln Medieval Bishop's Palace
• List of museums in Rutland