Rushton Triangular Lodge

This delightful triangular building sits along a lonely country lane, about a mile from the village of Rushton, off the A6, four miles north west of Kettering. From a cursory glance at this small but ostentatious building, it bears all the hallmarks of being nothing more than a folly. Upon a closer inspection of both its structure and its history, however, a deeper explanation for the existence of this building gradually reveals itself.

It was designed by Sir Thomas Tresham (father of one of the Gunpowder Plotters) and constructed between 1593 and 1597 and 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.