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Summary

Grade I registered 19th century formal gardens on the site of late 17th century gardens, with 19th century grounds originating on the mid 18th century, set in an extensive park first enclosed in 1302.

Monument Type(s):

• GARDEN (17th century - 1601 AD to 1700 AD)
• PARK (14th century to 19th century - 1301 AD to 1900 AD)
• DEER PARK (17th century to 19th century - 1601 AD to 1900 AD)
• FORMAL GARDEN (17th century to 19th century - 1601 AD to 1900 AD)
• AVENUE (LANDSCAPE FEATURE) (17th century to 19th century - 1601 AD to 1900 AD)
• WATER GARDEN (17th century to 19th century - 1601 AD to 1900 AD)
• POND (17th century to 18th century - 1601 AD to 1800 AD)
• LAKE (18th century to 19th century - 1701 AD to 1900 AD)
• DRIVE (18th century to 19th century - 1701 AD to 1900 AD)

Associated Events:

• RCHME survey, Wimpole Park, 1998

Protected Status:

• Registered Park or Garden (I) 1000635: Wimpole Hall

Full description

1. Grade I registered 19th century formal gardens on the site of late 17th century gardens, with 19th century grounds originating on the mid 18th century, set in an extensive park first enclosed in 1302. Successive designs for the park were prepared by Charles Bridgeman, Robert Greening, Lancelot Brown, William Emes and Humphrey Repton, who produced a Red Book for Wimpole in 1801. The gardens lie to the N. and W. of the hall. The area closest to the hall, the so called Dutch Garden was laid out in the 1980s. Steps lead down from the W. front to a straight gravel path which leads into the park. Across the ha-ha bordering the gaarden is the recently replanted (1980s) W. avenue. The present garden slie on the site of the late 17th century formal parterres which were removed. The pleasure ground lies to the N.E. of the Hall where grass planted with many varieties of trees and flowering shrubs flanks a serpentine walk which leads to the walled garden.
The N. park retains many of the features given to it by Lancelot Brown. The S. park retains more traces of the earlier formal park landscape and represents the the area of the early deer park. The great Double South Avenue runs from the drive S. of the Hall for more than 4km across the park and over the surrounding landscape.

2. The park at Wimpole is one of the largest and best known parks in Cambridgeshire. During the late 17th century it is recorded the park was leased for agricultural purposes, there is evidence of ridge and furrow and land boundaries. The park has been previously described as a 'polyfocal settlement with five hamlets which was gradually cleared during the 18th century.

3. The earliest reference to the park is indicated on a 1638 estate map showing two deer parks to the west of the manor house. Later a formal garden and avenue was put in. A water garden was laid out to the south-west and ponds to the south-east. The ponds soon became lakes crossed by a Chinese bridge.

4. The denuded earthworks of the late 17th and 18th century landscape gardens to Wimpole Hall, centred at TL 3356 5516. Surveyed by RCHME/EH between 1998 and 2000, many of the features are also visible on air photographs and 2008 lidar, and were mapped as part of the NAIS South West Cambridgeshire Project.

The features include part of a denuded broad shallow rectilinear enclosure ditch, which enclosed the south and west sides of Wimpole Hall (UID 369024), probably an earlier ha-ha. The north-western element of this earthwork continues northwards for approximately 255m forming the western boundary of the north garden. The east boundary to the garden is formed by the western robbing ditch of the walled fruit and kitchen garden. These gardens were compartmentalised, with the only evidence of the original wall surviving as parchmarks to the north of the present ha-ha, at TL 3357 5136. The eastern length of the walled garden follows the straightened route of the pre-existing north to south road illustrated on Hare's 1638 map of Wimpole.

Two further sunken gardens are visible as denuded rectilinear enclosures to the south of the hall, at TL 3350 5082 and TL 3363 5080. The western example is illustrated a 1707 engraving of the hall and grounds. Both this and the eastern example appear to have been aligned on pre-existing field boundaries or hollow ways illustrated on the 1638 map but are not illustrated following Brown's relandscaping of the park in the late 18th century. It is also worth noting that the eastern example, although denuded is slightly moat-like in appearance, and a field boundary on the 1638 map appears to almost kink aorund the enclosure, perhaps denoting an earlier orgin.

Additional features include linears associated with a bowling green and the square parchmark of a summerhouse appending the north-east corner of the walled garden. A broad very low spread bank extending off-centre north to south through the north garden may be the remnants of tree planting. Other narrow ditches and parchmarks within the complex may simply be drainage or disused footpaths.

5. The park at Wimpole is one of the largest and best known parks in Cambridgeshire. It appears to have originated as a small area of"grounds" of either 10 or 30 acres in extent (dependent on whether High and Low Parks may be seen as contemporary), growing by numerous enlargements to an area of 200 acres in 1720 and a peak of at least 600 acres in the late 19th/20th centuries, although, as with many larger and particularly later parks, there is some difficulty in distinguishing between the area included within the park and the area of the actual private estate. During the late 17th century it is recorded that parts of the park were leased for agricultural purposes and again in the 18th century it is recorded that sheep and cattle also grazed the parklands, in addition to deer. Many of the phases of enlargements resulted in the fossilisation of curved field and boundary outlines marking former extents, as well as relict ridge and furrow and other evidences of previous land use - including previous settlement areas. The park itself has been landscaped by several well-known park landscapers including Bridgeman (1720), Brown (1790) and Repton (1801) and these have had the effect of both destroying previous elements of the pre-parkland landscape and adding a palimpsest of new features. Archaeologically, the park contains earthworks of remnant ridge and furrow marking former extents of cultivation, settlement remains of several small polyfocal settlements, hollow ways, and several lengths of old park pale, as well as landscaping earthworks, a folly and several lengths of well-preserved ha-ha. A recent report (Phibbs 1980) also suggested that there may be some evidence indicative of the original (pre-16th century) Wimpole Manor House site to the north of the present Hall. The park was originally created by the Bassingbourn family, who held the manor until the end of the 14th century. It then changed hands rapidly several times but was acquired in 1428 by the Chicheley family - who then held the estate (including almost all of the Wimpole parish) until 1686. It was during this period of some 250 years that much of the enlargement, and accompanying displacement of settlement, route ways etc was accomplished. However, final settlement demolition (and building of the model village of "New Wimpole") and expansion was associated with the great landscaping schemes of the 18th and early 19th centuries and is outlined in more detail below. The church was also largely demolished and re-built, on the same site, in the mid-18th century although it appears to have functioned at least partly as a private chapel since the 16th century - with extensive areas devoted to family tombs and monuments for the Chicheley family. Oosthuizen has described Wimpole as a "polyfocal settlement with five hamlets which was gradually cleared during the 18th century", whilst Taylor has suggested a slightly earlier 17th century displacement probably emphasising an already polyfocal nature, with further displacement in the 18th century. Although there is clear archaeological and documentary evidence for these later phases of settlement disruption (SMR records), I would suggest that the polyfocal nature of the settlement as shown on Hare's map of 1638 was itself partly a product of earlier emparkment. This would place an earlier focus of settlement around the original manor house and church prior to the creation of "High" and "Low" Parks at the beginning of the 14th century. Unfortunately these areas have been frequently and heavily artificially landscaped in the last few centuries and there is not therefore any archaeological evidence for this suggestion. In 1840, at the end of this extended process of disruption, the settlement areas
were"replaced" by the village of "New Wimpole", built beyond the 19th century park boundary on a north-south alignment on the then main road to Cambridge. Park number 64 (Arrington) is also included within Wimpole Park. At Arrington the VCH suggests on the basis of documentary evidence that nine houses known to be on the east side of the road in the 17th century, had been removed by the early 19th century due to emparkment extending across the parish boundary. 33 acres from Arrington were taken into Wimpole in 1680 and this therefore seems the most likely date for this settlement displacement. Wimpole Park is the most complex of the parks tackled in this research in terms of impact on the social landscape of the surrounding parish, and it has been possible only to highlight the main periods of enlargement, settlement disruption and landscaping. The post-1770 alterations have not been included in the phasing outlined above. It would undoubtedly make an excellent candidate for an extended single parish study. Note: includes parks numbers 64 and 147. Addendum: Warin of Bassingbourn, whose family held a manor in Wimpole 1245-1323, had a crenellation licence granted for his site in Bassingbourn in 1266.

6. Before the present Wimpole Hall was built c.1640, there was a moated manor house set in a small 200 acre (81ha) deer-park and situated to the north and south of this were three medieval villages: Bennall End, Thresham End and Green End, associated with which was the ridge and furrow system of farming. The villages were cleared and the present parkland began to develop starting with the work of Charles Bridgeman, under Lord Harley followed by Greening, Capability Brown and Humphry Repton who worked for the Earls of Harwicke 1740 - 1895. The parkland as you see it today is an overlay of the work of these landscape designers and gardeners. Bridgeman's formal grand avenue sweeps away from the south front of the house for two and a half miles in contrast with the remainder of the park which was "naturalised" by Capability Brown. The North Park is particularly attractive with its belts of woodland, gentle rolling hills with individual and clumps of trees. The central feature of the North Park is the Gothic Tower and the restored lakes in the valley below.

7. The site of the formal gardens north of Wimpole Hall were surveyed and investigated by the RCHME in 1997, on behalf of the National Trust. Despite several phases of garden change and landscaping, many features were identified as low earthworks or parchmarks, including the boundary of the formal garden as it was from the 1690's to the 1770's, the site of the bowling green and two pavilions at its northern end, the complete plan of a compartmented kitchen garden established by Robert Greening in the 1750's, as well as the sites of several farm buildings which lay outside the garden until removal in the late 18th century. A full anaytical report and survey plans at 1:1000 and 1:2500 are available in the NMR archive.

10. The area of the park and its surrounds were mapped from air photographs and 2008 lidar as part of the NAIS South West Cambridgeshire Project. The mapping revealed a number of the now redundant, or partly redundant, parkland features, including the ornamental lake and the north garden. A moated site just to the north of Brick End is also surmised as possibly being a part of the landscaping for the park.

The mapping also revealed evidence for the pre-existing landscape, which were abandoned with emparkment. These include the settlements of Brick End, Bennall End, Thresham End and north of the current hall; as well as numerous hollow ways/roads which are illustrated on the 1638 map of Wimpole.

11. Recorded as having a Productive Walled Garden by the Cambridgeshire Gardens Trust in 2017-2018. Productive walled gardens are defined as free standing structures entirely within the grounds of a house or stately home and may include glasshouses, crossing paths, pumps, dipping ponds, outbuildings and slips.

<1> English Heritage, Register of Parks and Gardens, GD1626 (Scheduling record). SCB16143.

<2> Way, T., 1998, Cambridgeshire Parks & Gardens Survey, p.279 (Unpublished document). SCB15975.

<3> Cambridgeshire Garden Trust, 2000, The Gardens of Cambridgeshire: A Gazetteer, 114 (Bibliographic reference). SCB21348.

<4> Pattison, P. & Barker, L., 2003, Wimpole Park, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire Medieval Settlement, post-medieval park and gardens (Unpublished report). SCB60615.

<5> Way, T., 1997, A Study of the Impact of Imparkment on the Social Landscape of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire from c1080 to 1760 (Bibliographic reference). SCB18038.

<6> National Trust, http://www.wimpole.org/ (Digital archive). SCB17818.

<7> Pattison, P. and Garrow, D., 1998, Wimpole Park, Wimpole, Cambridgeshire (Unpublished report). SCB17870.

<8> Wilson, S., 2010, Aerial photographs of Wimpole Hall (Aerial Photograph). SCB21840.

<9> Salzman L.F. (ed), 1938, The Victoria County History of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Volume 1 (Bibliographic reference). SCB14629.

<10> SW Cambridgeshire project 2014 (NHPP), 2016, CUCAP Wimpole Lidar DTM 04-SEP-2008 (Geospatial data). SCB62308.

<11> Warren, V., 2022, Heritage Assessment at Wimpole Hall productive walled garden (Unpublished report). SCB80175.

Sources and further reading

Related records

Documents

Related documents and web pages

• https://doi.org/10.5284/1056142

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