Introduction
Features of Thorney Abbey House include a walled kitchen garden, a diagonal canal, a stone terrace and lawns.
To the west of the house is a raised stone balustraded terrace with central steps leading to lawns and specimen trees. The entrance is from the street to the south-east of the stable block, through a gateway with stone piers and globes similar to those at Thorpe Hall. The west garden wall has a timber gate between a further pair of stone piers with globes in the brick wall which leads to a five sided walled kitchen garden with diagonal canal.
A stone gateway with pediment leads from the kitchen garden to the park, known as Abbey Field, which surrounds the house on three sides. Immediately within the park on the north side next to the Peterborough Road is Thorney River. Boat houses in the park were connected by canals to the river.
- History
This stone house with a central chimney was built in 1660 by the same builders as at Thorpe Hall, but to a smaller scale, for John Earl of Bedford. His father Francis, the 4th Earl of Bedford, took the lead in organising the work and finding the money to solve the problem of making below sea level lands dry and fertile, upon the advice of Cornelius Vermuyden.
- Features & Designations
Features
- Kitchen Garden
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- Lawn
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- Garden Terrace
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- Garden Wall
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- Canal
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- House (featured building)
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- Key Information
Type
Garden
Purpose
Ornamental
Principal Building
Domestic / Residential
Survival
Extant
Civil Parish
Thorney
- References
Contributors
Cambridgeshire Gardens Trust