Triangular Lodge Rushton
The Triangular Lodge at Rushton in Northamptonshire is the most extraordinary piece of architectural symbolism in England, a late Elizabethan building of 1593 created entirely around the theme of the Trinity in a symbolic statement of Catholic faith by Sir Thomas Tresham, a recusant Catholic who spent large parts of his later life imprisoned for refusing to renounce his faith. Every element of the building, from its three walls, three storeys and three windows per side to the three-sided chimney stacks and the Latin inscriptions referring to the Trinity, embodies the number three in an act of architectural devotion of remarkable intensity. Tresham built the lodge in the grounds of his manor house at Rushton as a warrener's lodge, its practical function providing cover for what was primarily a symbolic building. The exterior stonework is covered in emblems, quotations and references whose full interpretation occupied Tresham scholars for generations and whose religious significance was unmistakable to contemporaries who knew the context of Catholic recusancy in late Elizabethan England. The building is managed by English Heritage and the interior, while modest, continues the tripartite symbolism established on the exterior. The condition of the stonework and the survival of the inscriptions in considerable completeness make the lodge one of the finest examples of Elizabethan architectural symbolism surviving in England. The context of the Tresham family's Catholic recusancy connects the lodge to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which Sir Thomas's son Francis was one of the conspirators, giving this small garden building a historical resonance quite out of proportion to its size.