A folly built in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Tresham, jailed for his Catholic faith, with every wall, window and gable arranged in threes
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Sir Thomas Tresham built this small lodge between 1593 and 1597, not long after one of several spells in prison for refusing to give up his Catholic faith, then illegal in England. Everything about it plays on the number three, a nod to the Holy Trinity. The building has three floors and three sides, each side about 33 feet long and each rising to three triangular gables, and several of its windows are cut as trefoils, the three-lobed leaf that was also the Tresham family emblem. Carved Latin inscriptions, each exactly 33 letters long, run around the building, including a pun above the door on Tresham’s own nickname, ‘Tres’. Officially built as a lodge for the warrener who minded Tresham’s rabbit farm, it reads far more like a private statement of faith than a working building. English Heritage opens it only on a limited seasonal basis. The Eleanor Cross at Geddington, one of Edward I’s memorials to his queen, is a short drive east.
