Flitwick Manor, Flitwick, Bedfordshire, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest. 

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Edward Blofield purchased the manor in 1632 from the Crown and built the 17th century manor house. The estate passed by inheritance and marriage through the Rhodes family in 1669, and then the Dells in 1735. The early 18th century estate consisted of The Elms, a plantation to the west of the house, with a kitchen garden and orchard to the south, beyond which were Warren Close and Little Warren Close, and further south, beyond a ditch, Church End Mead which led down to The Flit.

Anne Fisher inherited the house on a marriage settlement with George Hesse and following his death she married George Brooks in 1783. Brooks was responsible for various late 18th century improvements. John Thomas Brooks (1794-1858) inherited in 1817 and carried out extensive improvements to the estate. The pleasure grounds were praised by Loudon in the 1820s and 1830s, especially the high level of maintenance, the treatment of the wider estate as a ferme ornée and the exemplary arboretum, planted in a 'Natural Arrangement' (Loudon 1838). The property remained in the Brooks family until 1932 and was then occupied by the Lyall family until the late 1950s. The house is now (1998) an hotel and much of the land to the north of the site is now under modern housing.