Audley End House, and river

 

Once the extensive cultivated estate of an Abbey during the Middle Ages the landscape of Audley End has seen many changes reflecting the various tastes of its owners and the fashion of their time. After being converted into a private home the Abbey was replaced by a vast mansion of which the present house is only a part. The owner Thomas Howard, first Earl of Suffolk created a great formal garden to provide a suitable setting for his new house consisting of straight alleys and rectangular ponds with long avenues of trees stretching out into the countryside. Audley End's most notable owner, Sir John Griffin Griffin had very different ideas and during the 18^th century the magnificent park was transformed from formal gardens into one of 'Capability' Brown's most successful pastoral landscapes and remains substantially as it was when first created. Later features include a restored Parterre garden, a rose garden and fountains, and the restored 19^th century walled kitchen garden now in use as a working organic kitchen garden.