Abbots Ripton Hall, Huntingdon, England

Extensive pleasure grounds and ornamental gardens, developed from the 1950s by Humphrey Waterfield, lie to the south and east of the 18th-century hall. The Hall was remodelled by Salvin in 1856.

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The site of Abbots Ripton Hall is an old one although the house and the landscape which surround it are much more recent. The manor was mentioned in the Domesday Book and was held by the abbots of Ramsey Abbey until the Dissolution when it was granted by the Crown to Sir John St John. Although no gardens are recorded, it is known that the abbots dammed the eastern end of the Abbots Ripton Brook to provide a body of water in which to keep fish.

The manor passed through the St John family to Oliver, Earl of Bolingbroke, who in 1640 conveyed the property to Hugh Awdley. The estate was divided on Hugh's death between his grandnephews Nicholas and Thomas Bonfoy. Thomas's daughter Susan married Sir Charles Caesar whose descendants continued to hold the manor until the mid 18th century when Julius Caesar sold it. The majority was acquired in 1760 by William Henry Fellowes, whose descendants, the lords De Ramseys, remained lords of the manor. The Hall and its grounds, however, remained with Nicholas Bonfoy's descendants, the Roopers, who almost entirely rebuilt the old manor house in about 1800.

In the 1850s the De Ramseys purchased the remainder of the manor, commissioning the architect Anthony Salvin (1799-1881) to make substantial alterations to the Hall. By the mid 19th century a small area of gardens, including a long canal, is show on the Tithe map of 1841, which records the Hall surrounded by pasture fields rather than a park landscape. By the beginning of the 20th century gardens were being developed to the south-west of the Hall, which remained a second home to the family who lived mainly at Ramsey Abbey until about 1936, when they moved permanently to Abbots Ripton.

During the First World War the Hall was used as a hospital, then in the 1960s and 1970s Lord and Lady De Ramsey commissioned Humphrey Waterfield and Lanning Roper to lay out gardens and pleasure grounds of about 2 hectares. The architect Peter Foster built garden follies, and Christopher Thacker, a grotto. The park was expanded and a lake created during the 1970s. The site remains (1999) in private ownership.