Lytton Mausoleum in Knebworth Park, including railings
Knebworth Park, Kenbworth, SG1 2AX
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1174579
- Date first listed:
- 27-May-1968
- List Entry Name:
- Lytton Mausoleum in Knebworth Park, including railings
- Statutory Address:
- Knebworth Park, Kenbworth, SG1 2AX
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2003-04-18
- Reference:
- IOE01/04975/07
- Rights:
- © Mr Ron Walker. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1174579
- Date first listed:
- 27-May-1968
- List Entry Name:
- Lytton Mausoleum in Knebworth Park, including railings
- Statutory Address 1:
- Knebworth Park, Kenbworth, SG1 2AX
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- Knebworth Park, Kenbworth, SG1 2AX
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Hertfordshire
- District:
- North Hertfordshire (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Knebworth
- National Grid Reference:
- TL 23165 21137
Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 01/06/2018
TL 22 SW
3/152
KNEBWORTH
Knebworth Park
Lytton Mausoleum in Knebworth Park, including railings
(Formerly listed under OLD KNEBWORTH LANE, Old Knebworth)
27.5.68
GV
II
Mausoleum, 1817, by J B Papworth. Commissioned by Mrs E Bulwer Lytton, for her mother Elizabeth Warburton-Lytton, herself and her family. A small, rectangular stone chapel with canted angles and slightly tapering walls. West and east walls have blank doors with architrave frames flanked by consoles and with segmental pediments. There are inscribed panels on the long elevations. Niches in the canted sides with stone vases. The roof rises to a central podium carrying a stone sarcophagus with shell acroteria. The monument is surrounded by contemporary iron railings. (Pevsner (1977).
The ashes of Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton (1869-1923) are held in a casket within the Mausoleum. In 1908 she joined the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant suffrage organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Constance became one of the Union’s organisers. Despite her comfortable background she accepted a small salary as it freed her to take part in militant activities without compromising her family. Constance set up a small branch of the WSPU at Knebworth, but her main suffrage activity took place away from the Lytton family seat. In February 1909 she was arrested on a suffragette deputation to Parliament and sentenced to a month in Holloway. The following October Constance and other suffragettes were sent to Newcastle to disrupt Chancellor David Lloyd George’s visit. She was arrested for throwing stones at the Chancellor’s motorcade and was again sentenced to one month in prison in Newcastle. In line with the WSPU’s new policy, Constance went on hunger strike. The official response to this was to feed prisoners by force, but the prison doctor recognised Constance’s heart condition and instead released her.
Constance was convinced that her title had brought her special treatment, and to prove it disguised herself as a working-class seamstress, and adopted the pseudonym Jane Warton. She took part in a WSPU protest at Walton Gaol, Liverpool, and was arrested for stone-throwing. This time her medical examination was perfunctory and ‘Jane’ was forcibly fed multiple times and only released when her true identify was uncovered. This episode damaged her health and she took no further part in militant action, although she remained involved in the WSPU. She suffered a heart attack, then a stroke, teaching herself to write with her left hand to complete her book, ‘Prison and Prisoners’, in 1912.
This list entry was amended in 2018 as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1918 Representation of the People Act.
Listing NGR: TL2316521137
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 162104
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977)
Lytton, Constance, Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences by Constance Lytton and Jane Warton, Spinster, (1913)
Jenkins, Lyndsey, Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr, (2015)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 05-Jun-2026 at 19:51:04.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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