Audley End House
and Gardens
Audley End House, near Saffron Walden, is one of England’s grandest stately homes, offering visitors a rich mix of history, architecture, gardens and family-friendly discovery. Once a magnificent Jacobean mansion and later transformed into an elegant country house, it gives a fascinating glimpse into aristocratic life through its lavish interiors, atmospheric service wing and beautifully landscaped grounds. With woodland walks, formal gardens and plenty to explore throughout the year, Audley End makes a memorable day out in North Essex.
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About Audley End House
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Audley End was one of the greatest houses of early 17th-century England. Between about 1605 and 1614, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk and Lord Treasurer to James I, took an earlier house created by his grandfather and rebuilt it on the scale of a royal palace.
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So grand was it that about 50 years later Charles II bought it as a ready-made palace, which was handy for the Newmarket races. But the Howards bought Audley End back in 1701, and gradually reduced it to a more manageable size.
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The celebrity architect Robert Adam modernised the house in the 1760s for Sir John Griffin Griffin. At the same time, Sir John commissioned ‘Capability’ Brown to sweep away the remains of the formal landscape, to create one of England’s finest landscape gardens.
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In the 1820s Richard Neville, later 3rd Lord Braybrooke, remodelled the house to restore its original, Jacobean character. It is largely his taste that prevails in the house today.
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During the Second World War, Polish soldiers of the Special Operations Executive secretly trained here, preparing to be parachuted into German-occupied Poland.
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Source - National Trust - Find Out More
