Lytes Cary facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Lytes Cary |
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East front to the main house
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| General information | |
| Architectural style | Mixed architecture including Tudor |
| Town or city | near Charlton Mackrell, Somerton |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°02′09″N 2°40′04″W / 51.0358°N 2.6677°W |
| Construction started | 14th century |
| Completed | 19th century |
Lytes Cary is a beautiful old manor house with a chapel and gardens in Somerset, England. It's owned by the National Trust, which looks after historic places. Parts of the house are very old, dating back to the 14th century. Other parts were added in the 15th, 16th, 18th, and 20th centuries.
Even though it was built over many years, everything at Lytes Cary fits together perfectly. The house and its gardens blend beautifully with the sunny countryside around them. This special house is considered a Grade I listed building, meaning it's very important and protected.
The chapel is even older than the main house, built around 1343. It was a special place where prayers could be said for the family. The Great Hall was added in the 15th century, and the Oriel Room in the 16th. Over time, the house became quite run down. But in 1907, Sir Walter Jenner bought it and brought it back to life! He filled it with amazing old furniture, tapestries, and paintings. When he passed away in 1948, he gave Lytes Cary to the National Trust.
The gardens are also very special and are listed as Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. The original gardens from the 1600s are gone. However, the Jenners created new gardens in an Arts and Crafts style. They designed them like a series of outdoor "rooms" separated by tall, neat hedges. These garden rooms also have ponds and lovely paths to explore.
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History of Lytes Cary
The land around Lytes Cary once held a medieval village that is now gone. This area is protected as a scheduled monument.
The unique name "Lytes Cary" comes from two things: the Lyte family, who lived here for over 400 years, and the nearby River Cary. The first mention of the place was in 1285, when it was called Kari. William le Lyte was living on the estate in 1286. The Lyte family continued to live in and add to the house until the mid-1700s. The oldest part of the house still standing is the chapel, built in the mid-1300s.
The Great Hall was built in the mid-1400s. In the early 1500s, the entrance porch and a special room called the Oriel Room were added to the east side of the hall. The Great Parlour and Little Parlour, with bedrooms above them, were added to the south. After the Lyte family sold the house in 1755, it slowly fell apart. By the early 1800s, parts of the house had been torn down.
In 1907, Sir Walter Jenner bought Lytes Cary. He was the son of Sir William Jenner, who was a doctor to Queen Victoria. At the time, the Great Hall was being used to store cider, and the Great Parlour was full of farm tools. Sir Walter was inspired by his brother, who was restoring another old manor. He began to restore Lytes Cary, decorating it with beautiful 17th and 18th-century oak furniture, old tapestries, and historic paintings. He rebuilt the west side of the house in a simple style but kept the oldest parts of the house mostly as they were.
Sir Walter Jenner left Lytes Cary to the National Trust when he died in 1948. The house became a Grade I listed building in 1959. Today, the older parts of the house are open for visitors to explore.
Architecture of the Manor House
The House's Design
The two-story house and its chapel are built from a local stone called Blue Lias. Some parts of the house have lovely honey-colored Hamstone around the windows and corners. Later additions from the 1700s use brick. The roofs are made of stone tiles, with some newer terracotta tiles.
The Chapel
The chapel was built before the main house, around 1343, by Peter Lyte. It was a special "chantry chapel" where prayers were said for the Lyte family, both living and dead. It has a small window, called a squint, which allowed servants and others to watch the church service from inside the house.
In 1631, Thomas Lyte updated the chapel. He added the special roof, a communion rail, and a screen at the back. He also had a painted frieze (a decorative band) added below the roof, showing the Lyte family's coats of arms. In 1912, Sir Walter Jenner added the stained glass windows. Some of this glass is very old, from the medieval period.
The Great Hall
This large room was built in the mid-1400s. At one end, there's a slightly raised area where the Lyte family and important guests would sit at a long table. The rest of the hall was for the servants to eat. The roof has beautiful wooden beams and carvings of angels holding shields with the Lyte family's arms. The fireplace is from the 1400s, and the windows with their stained glass are from the early 1500s.
You enter the hall from the east porch through a "screens passage." This passage would have separated the hall from the kitchen and servants' areas. The screen and gallery you see today were added by Sir Walter Jenner in 1907. When Jenner bought the house, the Great Hall was being used to store cider!
The Great Hall is filled with mostly 17th-century oak furniture, like tables, chests, and special chairs. There's also a large dining table with two tall, blue and white Delftware tulip vases. A very special item here is the Lytes Herbal, a 16th-century book about plants. It was written by Henry Lyte, who was born and lived at the manor. His book, Niewe Herball, was published in 1578 and was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. You can see a copy of it in the Great Hall.
The Oriel Room
This small, cozy room was added to the south of the Great Hall in the early 1500s. It was a private dining room for the family, away from the servants. Above it is the small Oriel Bedroom, which was likely a dressing room for the Great Chamber. At the same time, other rooms were added or updated to the south of the Great Hall: the Great Parlour with the Great Chamber above it, and the Little Parlour with the Little Chamber above. John Lyte, who built these parts, placed his family's coat of arms on the outside of the building.
The Great Parlour
This was the main family living room on the ground floor. Its large south-facing window offers beautiful views of the gardens. John Lyte updated this room in 1533. In the early 1600s, Thomas Lyte added the wooden wall panels and an inner porch. These decorations also helped keep out drafts! In the 1900s, this room was used to store farm equipment. Sir Walter Jenner had the paint removed from the wood panels to show the original warm oak.
Above the Great Parlour is the Great Chamber, an impressive bedroom. It has a curved ceiling with plaster decorations showing John Lyte's family crest and his wife's. This ceiling is very rare! The wall above the bed shows the royal coat of arms and Tudor roses, which showed Lyte's loyalty to King Henry VIII. The wooden panels, the large four-poster bed, and the tapestries on the walls are from the 1600s.
The Little Parlour
This smaller room might have been used by Henry and Thomas Lyte for their studies. It also has later wooden panels and a special area where a collection of old glass items is displayed. Above this room is the Little Chamber, which Sir Walter Jenner used as his bedroom. The bed in this room came from another famous house in Somerset.
Paintings at Lytes Cary
Sir Walter Jenner filled the rooms with beautiful furniture and paintings. The collection includes portraits of important people like Lady Catherine Neville, James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, Mary II of England, and William III of England. There are also landscape paintings and oil paintings of horses.
Gardens of Lytes Cary
Sadly, all traces of Henry Lyte's original garden are gone. Records show that his son, Thomas, had a very well-stocked orchard in 1618. It had 60 different kinds of apples, 44 kinds of pears, 15 kinds of plums, 3 kinds of grapes, cherries, walnuts, and peaches! By the Victorian period, the garden was overgrown. So, when the Jenners arrived in 1907, they started fresh.
They designed the gardens with a series of hedged and walled "rooms." These rooms feature carefully shaped bushes (topiary), special trees, a pond, statues, a croquet lawn, and walkways. There's also an Elizabethan orchard and a special herbal border with plants mentioned in the Lytes Herbal book. The gate posts at the east and west entrances are also protected historic buildings.
The gardens were created in the popular Arts and Crafts style of the time. They are separated by tall, neatly trimmed box and yew hedges. The Jenners had a team of four gardeners to help them.
In 1965, Graham Stuart Thomas, the National Trust's first Gardens Adviser, designed the Main Border. From 1955 to 1997, the people who lived in the Manor, Biddy and Jeremy Chittenden, transformed the garden. Biddy replanted the main border in 1996, using new plants but keeping the same color scheme that Stuart Thomas had planned.
The gardens are listed as Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. A barn and other buildings northwest of the house are also listed buildings.
The Apostle Garden lines up with the front door of the house. It has a formal look, with tall, shaped yew trees on either side. This garden is kept simple so it doesn't take away from the beauty of the house. The main flower border is about 35 meters (115 feet) long and looks its best in midsummer. The flowers change color from blues and yellows, through creams and apricots, to pinks, purples, and reds. There's also a peaceful White Garden nearby for contrast.
The orchard has fruit trees like quinces, medlars, crab apples, and pears. Underneath them grow spring flowers like snake's head fritillaries, camassias, narcissus, cowslips, and lady's smock. Wide mown paths cross the orchard, meeting at a sundial in the middle. Four weeping elm trees used to be at the corners of the garden, but they died from Dutch elm disease in the 1970s. They were replaced in 1973 by four weeping ash trees. You can view the orchard from a raised path on its east side. A main path called the Long Walk is similar to a famous path at Hidcote Manor Garden in Gloucestershire, but on a smaller scale. It's a simple grassy path connecting the Raised Walk to the Pond Garden.
The Pond Garden, Seat Garden, and Croquet Lawn are all connected. Their openings line up to create a beautiful view from the bay windows of the Great Parlour and Great Chamber on the south side of the house, looking out over the Sparkford plain. A short tunnel made of hornbeam trees links the Pond Garden to the Vase Garden.
See also
- Grade I listed buildings in South Somerset
- List of National Trust properties in Somerset
