Tyringham, Newport Pagnell, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Tyringham manor was held by the Tyringham family throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, until it was bought by Edward Backwell about 1670. It remained in the Backwell family, passing, through his marriage with Elizabeth Backwell in 1778, to William Praed, banker and first chairman of the Grand Junction Canal Company. Praed (d 1833) was responsible for commissioning the architect Sir John Soane to rebuild the old manor house of the Tyringhams, described in 1782 in Pennant's Journey from Chester to London as 'neglected ... but not wholly unfurnished', together with the stables, bridge over the River Great Ouse and gateway. Soane was accompanied on several visits to Tyringham during 1793 by the landscape gardener John Haverfield (1744-1820), who advised on the siting of the bridge, amongst other things (B Clayton pers comm, 1998). Praed also commissioned Humphry Repton (1752-1818) in about 1793 to landscape the park, although if a Red Book was indeed produced for Tyringham, its whereabouts is unknown. The estate remained in the Praed family until it was bought in about 1903 by F A Konig, a Jewish Theosophist and banker from Silesia, and his French wife. Konig employed the Berlin architect Ernst Eberhard von Ihne to remodel the house, commissioning Charles F Rees, about 1911, to provide the formal forecourt and garden elements including the Rose Garden. Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was called in from 1924 to 1928, and designed the great axial garden on the north-west front, the commission being contemporary with his scheme for New Delhi. The house and gardens have been used as a health clinic since 1967.