It was started in 1495 as a Tudor building, with a major Jacobean exterior extension added in 1635 and a Georgian interior adopted in the 1740s, having 32,406 sq ft (3,010.6 m2) of floor area.

The Manor of Lilford was acquired in 1473 by William Browne a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason.

His son, Thomas Powys, was created the first Baron Lilford by the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger.

Its development by successive generations of the Powys family, who acquired the property in 1711, respected the old house, but each stage has a clarity that is clearly legible and contributes to the whole.

The outstanding contribution is that of Flitcroft in the c 1740s with his insertion of a comprehensive set of 18th-century interiors that not only transformed the principal rooms into a sequence of Palladian spaces, but brought light into the heart of the building.

Lilford Park was formalised between 1747 and 1776 by Flitcroft by removing all of the existing village (12 houses and the vicarage) as well as St Peter's Church, which buildings were all located south of the Hall.

His aviaries featured birds from around the globe, including rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks and even a pair of free-flying lammergeiers.

[6] The hall and park was the subject of the 27 January 1900 issue of Country Life Illustrated, and also a location for the BBC television series By the Sword Divided made in the 1980s.

The house remains on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register; graded as C - slow decay, in a poor condition.