Things to do in Cheshire East

Lyme Park is one of the grandest historic estates in the north of England, an Italianate mansion set within 1,400 acres of moorland, parkland, formal gardens and ancient deer park on the edge of the Peak District in Cheshire. The estate has been associated with the Legh family for nearly 600 years, and the house they developed over centuries into the palatial building visible today is an exceptional example of the evolving ambitions of an English aristocratic family. The house's current exterior appearance owes most to a Baroque remodelling carried out by the Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni between 1725 and 1735, which transformed an earlier Elizabethan building into a building of considerable grandeur with classical colonnades, formal courtyards and a theatrical south front that faces the lake and deer park. The interior preserves rooms from several periods, including Elizabethan panelling, Restoration carving and the formal reception rooms developed for eighteenth-century entertaining. The Clock Tower courtyard retains the feel of the earlier Tudor building beneath the later classical veneer. The gardens were developed over many centuries and include a formal Dutch garden, an English garden, a reflecting pool and the Victorian parterre. Humphry Repton, one of the most influential landscape designers in English history, was consulted about the wider park landscape and his recommendations helped shape the relationship between the house and the moorland setting that gives Lyme Park its distinctive character. The Cheshire Gate, a dramatic Victorian folly, provides one of the most striking viewpoints over the surrounding landscape. Lyme Park achieved a new wave of popular recognition when it was used as the filming location for Pemberley in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The shot of Colin Firth emerging from the lake in his wet shirt is one of the most discussed moments in British television history, and the park still attracts many visitors who come specifically to see the location. The red deer herd that roams the moorland and parkland is one of the features that most surprises first-time visitors. Seeing a large herd of deer moving across the open moorland above the house, with the Cheshire Plain stretching to the horizon below, is a genuinely memorable experience. Entry to the park is free; a charge applies for the house and gardens.