Abbots Ripton Hall, Huntingdon, England

The gardens are on the site of a medieval garden which contained an eel pond and mound, and a Victorian garden. Abbots Ripton Brook runs through the garden feeding ponds and a lake, with a Chinese pavilion on the far side. A brook crossed by a Chinese bridge leads to a lawn with a thatched Gothic summerhouse and is crossed again by a 1764 brick bridge.

A memorial urn to Humphrey Waterfield (died 1971) is adjacent to a canal and a fountain backed by a tall yew hedge near the Hall. Outstanding herbaceous borders about 92 metres long lead to a chestnut avenue, at whose mid-point is a gothic crossing in trellis. It was built in 1979 by Peter Foster (Surveyor of Wesminster Abbey), to replace diseased elms. Silver-leaved plants border the north-west boundary wall, and a rectangular medieval pool is near a small mount at the south-west corner. There are kitchen gardens with plant houses.

Lanning Roper advised on the design and planting between 1960 and 1970, and the Chinese and Gothic timber buildings are by Peter Foster. Fine East Anglian elms survive and there is a new arboretum with a collection of oak trees, white flowering shrub borders and a circular rose garden. All lie within the bounds of a medieval deer park with Holland and Wennington Woods to the north in which mature cedars are still growing.

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

Pleasure grounds and gardens with mid-18th century features, extensively developed from the late 1950s by Humphrey Waterfield and Lanning Roper, set in a mid-19th century park.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The village of Abbots Ripton lies about 5 kilometres to the west of the A141 Chatteris to Huntingdon road, about 6 kilometres north of Huntingdon. The site, which covers about 22 hectares, lies on the east side of the village, surrounded by a flat, open landscape of large fields. The B1090 forms the south-west boundary, screened from the park by a 20th-century plantation and a bund at the eastern end. To the north-west lies Hall Lane, divided from the garden partly by a hedge and a wall. To the north-east and south-east the park is bounded by hedges, beyond which lies farmland. Views into the park from the roads are screened by the plantations and the garden wall, the main views being internal ones, most notably that between the Hall and the lake. The ground is virtually flat and the Abbots Ripton Brook flows from north-west to south-east through the gardens, both the Brook and lake in the park being fed from run-off.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Victoria History of the County of Huntingdonshire III, (1936), pp 202-4

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Bedfordshire and the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough (1968), p 204

Country Life, 155 (21 March 1974), pp 626-8; no 50 (11 December 1997), pp 29-31

C Thacker, The History of Gardens (1979), pp 85, 184, 263, 280

The Garden 108, (February 1983), pp 44-8

Maps

Fellowes family estate map, 1776 (2068/MD13), (Huntingdon Record Office)

Tithe map for Abbots Ripton parish, 1841 (2196/36/1A), (Huntingdon Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1887,
2nd edition published 1900,
3rd edition published 1924

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1886,
3rd edition published 1924

Description written: December 1999

Edited: January 2001