History of National Trust Lyme

1465

At the Battle of Crécy on August 26, 1346, King Edward III scored a decisive victory against the French, and his then 16-year-old son Edward won his spurs (i.e., the mark of knighthood). It was at Crécy that Edward of Woodstock, also then known as the Prince of Wales, became widely known as the legendary Black Prince, a commander of military ability, charisma, and cruelty.
During the battle, a French nobleman seized hold of the Black Prince’s standard. Sir Thomas Danyers is said to have then rescued the standard from the hands of the enemy. As a reward for his loyalty to the crown, Danyers was given the lands of Lyme Handley.

Margaret Legh (née Dayners) later inherited the Lyme Handley from her father and in 1398, her marriage to Sir Piers Legh I forged Lyme into the Legh family history. Generations later, Sir Piers Legh VII, made Lyme a home, turning the humble hunting lodge into a grand country estate.

1570

The Elizabethan ‘core’ of Lyme House is now best viewed from the north front and accentuates the pinkish grey stone from quarries on the estate used to construct the north front and the outer eastern walls and the porch.
However, personal losses of the Legh's foreshadowed those of the country, as England fell into a ruinous civil war. As for Lyme, the property stood empty for 6 years; the gardens wildly neglected; and the rooms and corridors strangely silent.

1661

Lyme was brought back to life when Francis’ sister-in-law Lettice moved into the house, bringing with her its heir, Richard Legh. At the time, Richard was orphaned at 14, which meant that he was too young to support his king, but also too young for having done so.
Richard later became an MP and sat in Richard Cromwell’s first and only Parliament, and likely supported Sir George Booth’s failed Cheshire uprising as Cromwell’s England crumbled. Richard faced arrest but by the time Charles II returned to the throne in 1660, he was again an MP. He raised through the ranks, eventually becoming Deputy Lieutenant of Cheshire, Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire.
Back at home, Lyme prospered, with his with Elizabeth, Richard restored the house to its former glory.

Richard and Elizabeth (Peter XII’s parents) had added a new parlour to the east; sash windows to the north; and a suite of state apartments. Later in the mid 1720s, Peter brought on Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni who remodelled Lyme into an Italian Renaissance style, where now the south front, feels fundamentally more dramatic.

Year

Marred by tragedy, Peter XIII (1708-92) and his wife Martha ended up living in opposite wings of the house. The couple had two sons (who both died young) and two daughters, who were unable to inherit the Lyme estate. Martha eventually left Peter, a sad end for the couple and for Lyme, resulting in the house being left unloved, and remained so until Peter’s great-nephew came of age 20 years later.
Whilst Colonel Thomas Peter Legh (1753-97) was a gifted military man, capable of raising six troops of cavalry in just two weeks and receiving full military honours when he died in 1797, his personal life was a little less honourable. Thomas had left Lyme to decline over the years, stripping its woods to help fund housebuilding elsewhere, and had seven illegitimate children by seven different women. However, in setting about righting his wrongs just before his death, the Colonel named his eldest son, Thomas, as the rightful heir to his estates in an effort to secure the future of Lyme.

1797

Dramatic redevelopment of the eastern wing slotted neatly onto the Elizabethan frame. Thomas Legh, under the design guidance of Lewis Wyatt, raised the floor of the stag parlour; extended the dining room; added the library; and developed the entrance hall, saloon, and servant quarters – all done in vain to install a huge portrait of the Black Prince that could swing out to allow family in the Drawing Room to peer down into the entrance hall below (1813).

Thomas Legh (1792-1857): a fearless explorer, a cultivated collector remembered by the British Museum, and something of an entrepreneur. He was one of a handful of landowners to welcome the railways, even building a line that connected Manchester and Liverpool to his racecourse at Newton-le-Willows. He was such a successful businessman that he secured an income for the Legh family for the next 100 years. Unfortunately, his young wife Ellen died in childbirth; Thomas remarried in 1843 but produced no male heirs. Lyme was eventually inherited by his nephew.

1903

The Edwardian house with the 2nd Lord and Lady Newton shared with their predecessor a true desire to articulate their ancient past. Fashionable interior designers Philippe and Amadée Joubert painted and grained many of the rooms in simulated dark oak and redecorated the Entrance and Dining room so it looked more medieval; however, notably, much of the decoration has since been reversed.
The house was then passed on through several more generations of Leghs – William John Legh (1828-98) and then Thomas Legh (1857-1942).

1946

Phyllis Sandeman recalled that her brother Captain Richard (1888-1960), who was handed the Lyme house and estate in 1920, found it increasingly hard to maintain Lyme “the chief difficulty being the impossibility of finding and keeping adequate staff.”
In 1946, Richard gifted Lyme to the National Trust, for the health, education and delight of the people of Stockport, marking the end of the Legh’s 600-year reign at Lyme.

History of Lyme