Moor Park, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

In the 1480s King Edward IV seized The Moor estate from George Nevill, Archbishop of York, who had enclosed about 270 hectares as a deer park. The estate was one of Cardinal Wolsey's chief residences, it being seized upon his disgrace by Henry VIII and occupied by his queen Catherine of Aragon during their divorce proceedings. Sir John Russell was keeper of the park by 1533, and in 1576 the estate was granted to Francis, Earl of Bedford. From 1617 to 1627 Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford seems to have 'created [at Moor Park] what was to be a celebrated garden with "very great care, excellent contrivance and ... much cost"' (Strong 1979). The Earl and Countess of Pembroke occupied Moor Park from 1627 to 1630, with further additions to the garden, it being described in detail by Sir William Temple in 1685, some thirty years after he visited on his honeymoon. He referred to it as the 'perfectest figure of a garden' he had ever seen (Hunt and Willis 1975). A new house was built some distance south-west of the earlier mansion in the late 17th century by the Duke of Monmouth. In 1720 Benjamin Styles, a merchant who made a fortune from the South Sea Bubble, bought the estate, rebuilding the house and employing Charles Bridgeman (died 1738) to provide a plan for the gardens (Willis 1977).

Admiral Lord Anson (died 1762) bought the park in about 1754 (Victoria County History), employing Lancelot Brown (1716-83) from 1753 to carry out extensive works to it during the 1750s, including remodelling the pleasure grounds. The estate passed through several further hands, including Sir Lawrence Dundas, who employed Robert Adam in the house and to design park buildings, and the first Marquess of Westminster who employed Robert Cundy II, and laid out the Italian Garden. Lord Leverhulme employed Thomas Mawson around 1910. In the mid-20th century the park was laid out with golf courses and the mansion became the clubhouse, in which use it remains (1999).