A
Jacobean house on the site was in the possession of
John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton. King
James VI and I came to Burley on 23 April 1603. Harrington commissioned
Samuel Daniel to wrote a poem, the
Panegyrike Congratulatorie, for the royal welcome. John Harrington's daughter,
Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, sold the manor to
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) in around 1620. When King James came to Burley in August 1621, he was entertained by plays and
masques. When the king returned for a wedding in October 1621, the festivities included a performance of
Ben Jonson's
Masque of Gypsies. The house is said to have been the venue for a banquet for
Charles I and
Henrietta Maria, when
Jeffrey Hudson, the Rutland Dwarf, was produced from a pie. The house was destroyed in the
Civil War.
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham sold the estate to
Daniel Finch, 2nd Earl of Nottingham (1647-1730) in the 1670s. The early Finchs were lawyers, Finch's father,
Heneage having served as
Lord Chancellor under
Charles II. Finch later determined to construct a new house on the site. Elizabeth Williamson, in her
Leicestershire and Rutland volume in the
Buildings of England series gives the build dates for the new house as between 1696 and 1700.
Historic England suggests a slightly later completion date of 1705. While Finch consulted widely on the design, including seeking advice from
Christopher Wren, and employed a number of known builders, including Henry Dormer and John Lumley, he appears to have acted as his own architect.
Historic England describes Finch's design as "
Baroque in composition" The southern, garden, frontage now looks out over
Rutland Water. In 1795 the
9th Earl engaged
Humphry Repton to remodel the grounds. Repton produced one of his celebrated
Red Books showing the potential for development, but not all of his ideas were taken forward. ==Architecture and description==