Modifications were made to it in the 1720s by Giacomo Leoni, who retained some of the Elizabethan features and added others, particularly the courtyard and the south range.

The land now occupied by Lyme Park was granted to Piers Legh and his wife Margaret d'Anyers, by letters patent dated 4 January 1398, by Richard II, son of Edward, the Black Prince.

Richard II favoured Piers and granted his family a coat of arms in 1397, and the estate of Lyme Handley in 1398 redeeming the annuity.

[5] This house, by an unknown designer, was L-shaped in plan with east and north ranges; piecemeal additions were made to it during the 17th century.

In the 1720s Giacomo Leoni, an architect from Venice, added a south range to the house creating a courtyard plan, and made other changes.

In the early 19th century the estate was owned by Thomas Legh, who commissioned Lewis Wyatt to restore the house between 1816 and 1822.

[2] Later in the century William Legh, 1st Baron Newton, added stables and other buildings to the estate, and created the Dutch Garden.

[9] Further alterations were made to the gardens by Thomas Legh, 2nd Baron Newton and his wife during the early 20th century.

The ground floors of the three outer bays on each side are rusticated, and their upper storeys are divided by large Composite pilasters.

[2] Although Leoni had been influenced by the works and principles of Andrea Palladio,[16] both Pevsner and the authors of the citation in the National Heritage List for England agree that the design of this front is more Baroque than Palladian.

[2][3] The nine-bay three-storey east front is mostly Elizabethan in style and has Wyatt's single-storey extension protruding from its centre.

[2] This entrance is between the first and second storeys and is approached by symmetrical pairs of stairs with iron balusters,[3] which were made in 1734 by John Gardom of Baslow, Derbyshire.

[18][b] In the centre of the courtyard is an Italian Renaissance well-head, surrounded by chequered pink and white stone, simulating marble.

In order to accommodate them, the interior decorator, Amadée Joubert, had to make alterations, including the removal of a tabernacle and cutting out four of the pilasters.

[20] To the south of the Entrance Hall is the Library, and to the east is Wyatt's Dining Room, which has a stucco ceiling and a carved overmantel both in a late 17th-century style, as well as a frieze.

Over the fireplace is a large stone overmantel, which is decorated with pairs of atlantes and caryatids framing the arms of Elizabeth I.

[3] The Stag Parlour has a chimneypiece depicting an Elizabethan house and hunting scenes, and it includes the arms of James I.

[21] Its ceiling is decorated in rococo style,[22] and the room contains wooden carvings that have been attributed to Grinling Gibbons.

When the family moved from the house in 1946, the missal went with them, and was held for safe-keeping in the John Rylands Library in Manchester.

This included re-graining of its ceiling, reproducing velvet for the upholstery and curtains, and re-papering the room with replica wallpaper, based on its original design.

From the south side a lawn slopes down to another pond beyond which is a small ravine with a stone bridge, this area being known as Killtime.

Richard's son, Peter Legh XII carried out more extensive tree-planting in the park, giving it its current appearance.

Formerly an unusual breed of wild white cattle with red ears grazed in the park but they became extinct in 1884.

[13] The Gritstone Trail and the Peak District Boundary Walk long-distance footpaths both cross the park.

[29] Also in the park is the Paddock Cottage which was erected by Peter Legh IX and restored in the early 21st century.

[32] Other structures in the grounds listed at Grade II are the Pheasant House dating from about 1870,[33] an Italian white marble wellhead in the centre of the courtyard of the house dating from the 18th century and probably brought to the house from Venice in about 1900,[34] sandstone kennels in an H-plan dating from around 1870,[35] a pair of gardener's cottages dated 1871,[36] terrace revetment walls to the west of the house containing some 17th-century masonry with later repairs,[37] the lodge, gate piers and gates on Lyme Park Drive,[38] the forward gatepiers to Lyme Park Drive, dating from the late 17th century and moved to their present position about 1860,[39] the gate piers in Red Lane,[40] and the gate piers, gates and railings to the north of the north front of the house.

The exterior of the hall was used as Pemberley, the seat of Mr Darcy, in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice,[11] and as a location for the Red Dwarf episode "Timeslides".