Burghley House is a grand 16th-century
country house near the town of
Stamford,
Lincolnshire, England (Burghley House itself is just within
Cambridgeshire).
Burghley was built for
Sir William Cecil, later 1st Baron Burghley, who was
Lord High Treasurer to
Queen Elizabeth I, between 1558 and 1587. It was subsequently the residence of his descendants, the Earls and
Marquesses of Exeter, and since 1961 is owned by a charitable trust established by the family.
The house and estate was featured in the "Da Vinci Code". Burghley played numerous different locations in the film, including all the interior and many of the exterior scenes portraying Castile Gandolfo. Additional scenes included the garages at Chateau Villette which saw Teabing and Langdon hotly pursued by the French police and the Saunières countryside retreat where the young Sophie witnessed the Priory of Scion ritual ceremony. In a spectacular night-time scene, the Stable Courtyard was transformed into a fourteenth century French village with a flashback to the medieval witch hunts.
I had limited viewpoints for the house itself, as the grounds are heavily secured with walls, gates, and wire, and, par usual, closed for the season.
The newly created "Garden of Surprises" was open, however, and I enjoyed walking through it and the sculpture garden.
There were several very old trees. in the parkland.
