Wimpole Hall, the park

Owners of Wimpole have always noted the topographical junction of the flat clay lands to the west of Cambridge wth the rising chalk ground which can be traced south-west to the Chilterns. From the Hall each vista is distinct. To the south the land opens out towards the hills beyond Royston, but to the north and east the land rises into undulating wooded hills. Around the Hall there is parkland dotted with trees, with farmland and woods beyond.

The earliest reference to the park is indicated on a 1638 estate map showing two deer parks to the west of the old manor house, the High and Low Park, marked by banks which still survive, as do some of the walnut trees which separated them. Sir Thomas Chicheley replaced the manor house in 1640 with a new mansion and formal garden. A formal avenue 90 feet wide was planted south towards the road.

The Earl of Radnor acquired Wimpole in 1683 and Kip’s engraving shows the extensive improvements to the garden which were carried out. A water garden was laid out to the south-west of the Hall and ponds to the south-east. To the north, fish ponds were added with clumps of trees to the north. Johnson’s Hill, the high point to the north was linked to the Hall by a new avenue.

Between 1720 and 1725, Lord Harley employed Charles Bridgeman, who added more avenues in the parkland and simplified Radnor’s north garden. He planted a grid of limes and horse chestnuts to the west of the Hall, and by cutting through another avenue allowed Whaddon church spire to become an eye catcher. Bridgeman’s most dramatic alteration was the two mile long South Avenue, with parallel lines of elms 50 feet apart across a space of 90 yards. The avenue continues around an octagonal basin and then to the Great North Road. The avenue was felled in the 1970s following Dutch Elm Disease, and has been replanted with limes grafted from the trees on the estate.

‘Capability’ Brown proposed alterations to the formal avenues between 1765 and 1775, mainly those to the north-west of the hall. Radnor’s fish ponds became lakes with islands and were crossed by a Chinese bridge, which has now been restored. In 1774 James Essex reworked Sanderson Miller’s proposals for a Gothic tower on Johnson’s Hill, which consists of three circular towers in various stages of ruin. 15 years later, Brown’s pupil William Emes relocated the kitchen garden to its present position and the park was extended further to the south-west, where new plantations sheltered it from the road.

In 1801 Humphry Repton proposed further informality in the planting by extending and bulking up Brown’s belts of trees around the perimeter of the park. He laid out the drive to the east via Cobb’s Wood and then looping to the south to the Cambridge Road near Orwell. The west gates to the park at the village of Arrington and the stables were designed in 1851 by Kendall. The park was extended in the mid-19th century and planting continued until 1910.

Since the estate was given to the National Trust, a considerable amount of new planting and restoration work in the park has been undertaken and a series of planned walks have been established. Rare breeds of animals now graze the fields of the park.