Lyddington Bede House is a historic house in Rutland

Rutland

Rutland is a landlocked county in central England, bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire and southeast by Peterborough and Northamptonshire....

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, owned and opened to the public by English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

.
The existing Grade I listed building is a part of a former palace of the Bishops of Lincoln, situated next to the church in the village of Lyddington

Lyddington

Lyddington is a village in the county of Rutland in the East Midlands of England. There are two public houses, The Marquess of Exeter and The Old White Hart....

.

After the Reformation

English Reformation

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....

, ownership passed to the Cecil family who made it their private house. By 1600 it had passed to Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter

Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter

Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, KG , known as Lord Burghley from 1598 to 1605, was an English politician and soldier.-Life:...

, son of Lord Burghley

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , KG was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572...

, who converted it into an almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

 for twelve poor bedesmen and it continued in this use until 1930. A feature is the former bishops’ Great Chamber with its beautifully-carved ceiling cornice

Cornice

Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

.

The remains of the fishponds of the bishop's palace are nearby.

Nearby English Heritage attractions

• Rushton Triangular Lodge
  Rushton Triangular Lodge
  The Triangular Lodge is a folly, designed and constructed between 1593 and 1597 by Sir Thomas Tresham near Rushton, Northamptonshire, England. It is now in the care of English Heritage...
  
  
• Kirby Hall
  Kirby Hall
  Kirby Hall is an Elizabethan country house, located near Gretton, Northamptonshire, England. . Construction on the building began in 1570 based on the designs in French architectural pattern books and expanded in the classical style over the course of the decades. The house is now in a semi-ruined...
  
  
• Eleanor Cross, Geddington

External links

• Lyddington Bede House - official site at English Heritage