Ampthill Park, Ampthill, Bedfordshire, England

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

A 17th/18th century country house surrounded by a landscape park by Lancelot Brown, about 1771-1772.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Ampthill Park lies 10 kilometres south of Bedford, at the north-west corner of Ampthill town. The site, about 140 hectares, is bounded to the south by the old Woburn to Ampthill road, with the site of the medieval Little Park and Cooper's Hill south of this, to the east by the Bedford to Ampthill road, and to the north-west and north by agricultural land, with the mainline railway forming the south-west boundary. The southern part of the site is bisected west to east by the Ampthill Ridge, part of the Greensand Ridge, which falls gently to the south boundary and steeply to the north to the flat land of the Bedford Plain in the northern half of the site. The setting is largely agricultural and wooded, with the town of Ampthill to the south-east, the village of Millbrook to the west, and the Houghton House estate to the east.

REFERENCES

The Walpole Society 16, (1927-8), pp 69-70

D Stroud, Capability Brown (1975), p 215

J Collett-White (ed), Inventories of Bedfordshire Country Houses, 1714-1830, (Bedfordshire Historical Record Society 1995), pp 12-15

Bedfordshire Magazine, 13 (Autumn 1972), pp 241-246

Maps

T Jefferys, The County of Bedford, 1765

A Bryant, Map of the County of Bedford, 1826

Ampthill Park, 1808 (Bedfordshire Record Office)
 

Description written: September 1997

Amended: April 1999

Edited: April 1999