Rushton Triangular Lodge, Kettering (Northamptonshire)
The delightful Elizabethan folly was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham to symbolise the Holy Trinity.
Introduction
The Triangular Lodge is a folly, designed and constructed between 1593 and 1597 by Sir Thomas Tresham. The stone used for the construction was alternating bands of dark and light limestone.
History to the present day
This delightful triangular building was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham (father of one of the Gunpowder Plotters) and constructed between 1593 and 1597. It is a testament to Tresham's Roman Catholicism: the number three, symbolising the Holy Trinity, is apparent everywhere. There are three floors, trefoil windows and three triangular gables on each side.On the entrance front is the inscription 'Tres Testimonium Dant' ('there are three that give witness'), a Biblical quotation from St John's Gospel referring to the Trinity. It is also a pun on Tresham's name; his wife called him 'Good Tres' in her letters. The Lodge was the only building Tresham designed which he saw completed before his death in 1605.
The windows on each floor are of a different designs, all equally ornate. The largest, those on the first floor, are in the form of a trefoil, which was the emblem of the Tresham family. The basement windows are small trefoils with a triangular pane at their centre. The windows on the ground floor are of a lozenge design, each having 12 small circular openings surrounding a central cruciform slit. Heraldic shields of various families surround these windows.
The building is crowned, above the quotations on each facade, by three steep gables each surmounted by a three-sided obelisk at the apex. Among the emblems carved on the gables are, on the southeast side, the highly symbolic seven-branched candelabrum within an octagonal plaque, and a heptagonal plaque depicting the seven eyes of God. On the north side are a Pelican in her piety, a symbol of Christ and the Eucharist, and a Hen and Chickens; on the southwest gable are a Dove and Serpent; and the Hand of God touching a globe. The triangular chimney is adorned with the holy monogram "IHS", a lamb and cross, and a chalice.
While the lodge is indisputably a testament to Tresham's faith, it is also an example of the Elizabethan love of allegory. Carved in the gables are the numbers "3509" and "3898": these are said to be the dates (BC) of the Creation and the Calling of Abraham. Among the more recent dates carved on the building are 1580, thought to be the date of Tresham's conversion, and also the future (at the time of their carving) dates 1626 and 1641 - to what do they refer? One suggestion is that not only are they divisible by three, but that, when 1593 is subtracted from them, they give 33 and 48, the years in which Jesus and the Virgin Mary are said to have died.
Arrival information and how to find us
Address: Rushton Triangular Lodge, Northamptonshire, , United Kingdom
Opening times:
1 Apr-1 Nov: 11am-4pm Mon, Thu, Fri, Sat, & Sun
Prices:
Adult:£3.00
Children:£1.50
Concession:£2.60
Photographs are copyright of English Heritage Photo Library
