Historic Parks and Gardens Protected Thanks to the Suffolk's Unforgettable Garden Story Project
Suffolk’s Unforgettable Garden Story, an exciting project to celebrate and protect historic Suffolk parks, gardens and landscapes, is celebrating its successful completion.
Made possible by a £36,000 grant from Historic England, the 2 year project was run in partnership by the Gardens Trust, Historic England and the Suffolk Gardens Trust.
Volunteer research
More than 20 people volunteered on the project, sharing their knowledge and developing their research skills.
As a result, the unknown stories of more than 20 historic parks and gardens have been told in detailed research reports, which will be published on the Suffolk Gardens Trust website.
New volunteers welcome
The passionate and dedicated volunteer group who came together for the Suffolk’s Unforgettable Garden Story project continue to research more historic designed landscapes and would love to welcome new volunteers.
There are opportunities to discover hidden historic gems, reveal their stories, and help share the project’s research with wider audiences.
Newly protected parks and gardens
Newly protected parks and gardens include:
- Abbot’s Hall in Stowmarket, the pleasure grounds of an early 18th century house
- Thorpeness Meare, the adventurous landscape of Britain’s first purpose-built holiday village
- Crow's Hall, the gardens of a mid-16th century manor house
- Staverton Park, once owned by royalty
- The Walled Garden at the Royal Hospital School in Holbrook, featuring a distinctive ‘crinkle-crankle’ wall, which used fewer bricks in response to the Brick Tax (1784 to 1850)
Abbot’s Hall, The Food Museum, Stowmarket (Grade II registered)
These elegant pleasure grounds are the setting for Abbot’s Hall, a Grade II* listed 18th century country house. The gardens contain a walled garden, lawns and mixed tree plantations, including limes, copper beeches, Scots pines and an Atlas cedar.
Within its grounds was a ‘Camping Land’, where an annual fair was held from 1347, and which was used for ‘Camp-Ball’, an East Anglian ball game popular from the medieval period to the mid-19th century.
Over the centuries, Abbot’s Hall has passed through many owners, including Alice Howe and Charles Blosse, who were responsible for the rebuilding of the hall into the house seen today and the alteration of the ponds, creating a terraced walkway surrounding a canal-like main pond (a fashionable feature of historic Suffolk gardens) and an off-centre island.
In 1963, the last owners of Abbot's Hall, Vera and Ena Longe, entrusted Abbot’s Hall, the barn and 2 acres of land for the creation of a museum. In 1967, the Abbot's Hall Museum of Rural Life of East Anglia (now the Food Museum) opened. By 2005, the Hall itself and a total of 70 acres had come into museum use. Now, in 2024, the estate is 84 acres in total. The museum is open to the public all year round.
Thorpeness Meare (Grade II registered)
The Meare is a major feature of Thorpeness, Britain's first purpose-built holiday village.
It was the inspiration of landowner Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie (1858 to 1932), who inherited Sizewell Hall and the small fishing village of Thorpe from his parents in 1908 and conceived the idea of developing Thorpe into a family holiday village.
Thorpeness is the earlier of only 2 complete planned resort villages in Britain (the other is Portmeirion in North Wales) before holiday camps such as Butlins, founded in 1936.
Using an area of land that regularly flooded from the Hundred River at times of high rainfall, Ogilvie created an adventurous landscape featuring ornamental islands, serpentine water channels and areas of open lake for children to play in safely, all in water levels shallower than 1 metre.
The islands, designed to stimulate imagination and adventurous play, are inspired by literature and include features that transport children to the pages of a book. These include Wendy's House and the Crocodile from Peter Pan (author J M Barrie was a good friend of Ogilvie) and Pegotty's House from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield.
The Meare has provided recreation and enjoyment for children and families since its opening and remains a hugely popular visitor attraction.
Crow's Hall, Debenham (Grade II registered)
A stunning panorama of the surrounding countryside can be seen from Crow’s Hall gardens.
The mid-16th century manor house at Crow’s Hall is surrounded by a moat and is entered by a brick bridge and a gatehouse.
Unlike many other country estates, it has never been formally designed and is an unusual survival of a small, early country house landscape.
The wide, water-filled moat surrounding the main house is a major landscape feature and creates an impressive visual effect when approaching the house. A second, narrow, water-filled moat to the outer courtyard surrounds a meadow that was originally an orchard.
A double-row oak avenue known as ‘The Walk’ features trees that are between 200 to 300 years old. A 16th century thatched dovecote is situated between ‘The Walk’ and the main house, and a former small moat called ‘The Stews’ is now planted with oak trees.
Within the moated area around the house are gardens, partly created on the foundations of the ruined portions of the house, designed in 2007 by Xa Tollemache. Created as a series of outdoor rooms, they include an island garden with planting using brick foundations as walled flower beds; a Tudor-style knot garden with low-level box hedging; and The Pool Garden, containing a raised, round pool with a central fountain.
Staverton Park, Wantisden (Grade II* registered)
The park at Staverton is first referenced in 1268 to 1269, though it is probably significantly older. Amongst the estate’s owners were Thomas of Brotherton, son of King Edward I, and Sir Michael Stanhope of Sudbourne Hall, Groom of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I.
The medieval deer park is an evocative landscape of massed, ancient oak pollards. It also contains a dense area of oaks and hollies called ‘The Thicks’. Some of the hollies are said to be the biggest in Britain, accompanied by the biggest birches and rowans. There is also a unique crescent-shaped earthwork called Cumberlands Mound, which is thought to be associated with medieval deer management (it is now a scheduled monument).
In ‘The History of the Countryside’ (1984), Oliver Rackham states: “Sometimes a park still has its trees. The supreme example is Staverton Park... a famous and awesome place of Tolkienesque wonder and beauty.”
2 picturesque cottages mark the mid-to-late 19th century main entrances to the park.
Walled Garden at the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook (Grade II listed)
The walled garden at the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook, dates from the late 18th or early 19th century.
It features a distinctive and beautifully crafted curving ‘crinkle-crankle’ wall, a feature found predominately in East Anglia and especially in Suffolk. The design, using fewer bricks, was often employed as a response to the Brick Tax (introduced in 1784 and abolished in 1850), showing how economic conditions influenced the development of architectural style.
In 1921, the Holbrook estate was donated by its owner, Gifford Sherman Reade (1846 to 1929), for the site of a new Royal Hospital School. The kitchen garden originally supplied the school but is now part of the garden belonging to the Headmaster’s house. The garden is laid to lawn with flower borders and fruit bushes at the northern end.
Holbrook House is listed at Grade II along with almost all of the original school buildings (except for the main range and the chapel, which are listed at Grade II*).
