Originally a Tudor house, Lyme was transformed by the Venetian architect Leoni into an Italianate palace. Some of the Elizabethan interiors survive and contrast dramatically with later rooms. The state rooms are adorned with Mortlake tapestries, woodcarvings attributed to Grinling Gibbons and an important collection of English clocks. The 6.8-hectare (17-acre) Victorian garden boasts impressive bedding schemes, a sunken parterre, an Edwardian rose garden, Jekyll-style herbaceous borders, reflection lake, a ravine garden and Wyatt conservatory. The garden is surrounded by a medieval deer park, with herds of Red and Fallow deer, covering almost 566 hectares (1,400 acres) of moorland, woodland and parkland and containing an early 18th-century hunting tower (The Cage).

Lyme appeared as 'Pemberley' in the BBC's adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice.

"So we decided to have what is called a "split location" and film all the exteriors of Pemberley at Lyme Park

and all the interiors of Sudbury Hall" (Sue Birtwistle , The making of Pride and Prejudice"