Rushbrooke Hall | Suffolk's Historic Gardens & Parks Inventory

Parish: RUSHBROOKE WITH ROUGHAM
District Council: WEST SUFFOLK (previously St Edmundsbury)
TL 890 611
Not open to the public

The south front of Rushbrooke Hall before the early-eighteenth century alterations by Sir Jermyn Davers. The wording reads ‘…the seat of the late Sr. Charles Davers Bart. now the Right Honourable Earl of Bristol’, which means it was engraved after the death of Sir Charles Davers in 1806. (by kind permission of Bury Past & Present Society (https://www.burypastandpresent.org.uk/) Spanton Jarman Collection K505/412)

East of the River Lark, the moated site that was once occupied by the demolished Rushbrooke Hall is c. 3km (2mls) south-east of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. At a high point, in its heyday it was surrounded by a gently-undulating landscape park that was in existence by the early-eighteenth century, although now mainly arable. The parish is sparsely populated with scattered farmsteads within the Rushbrooke Estate and the hamlet of Rushbrooke and Church of St Nicholas (Grade I) are to the north.

OWNERS OF THE RUSHBROOKE HALL ESTATE
The manor of Rushbrooke is named after the Rushbrooke family who owned the land from the twelfth century. In 1230 it passed to the Jermyns and it is thought that the great house that once occupied the moat was built around 1550 by Edmund Jermyn, or possibly in c. 1575 by Sir Robert Jermyn, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1578 and recorded as having entertained her at Rushbrooke Hall on two occasions. The male line of the Jermyn family died out in 1703 when through marriage the estate passed to Sir Robert Davers, one of the two Bury St Edmunds MPs. Having made their money from sugar plantations in Barbados, the Davers family were immensely rich and also owned the nearby Rougham Estate.

Sir Charles Davers, the sixth baronet, (1737–1806) was a British Army officer and politician who had undertaken the Grand Tour after graduation from Cambridge in 1755. Said by François de Rochefoucauld in 1784 to be a ‘very kind man’, he died with a household of illegitimate children but with no male heir. So in 1806 the Rushbrooke Estate passed to Frederick William Hervey, later created the first Marquess of Bristol, through his marriage to Elizabeth Davers. Frederick’s father had built Ickworth House. Soon after inheriting Rushbrooke, Frederick exchanged it for the estate at Little Saxham with Colonel Robert Rushbrooke. Robert had also married a Davers’ daughter, and thus Rushbrooke returned to the Rushbrooke family after many generations.

In 1919 the 145ha (358a) Rushbrooke Estate was split up and sold. The house with 79ha (195a) was bought by Captain Philip Ashworth of West Dean Park, Chichester and then in 1922 sold to Lord Islington. After his death in 1936, Rushbrooke Hall, park and village were sold to Lord Rothchild who wanted a residence within easy distance of Cambridge. Over the following years he set about buying up the surrounding farms and land that had once formed the original estate. He also rebuilt most of the village houses, firstly in 1938 to mock-Tudor designs by the local architect William Mitchell and then between 1955 and 1963 by Sir Richard Llewelyn Davies and John Weeks in a more modernist style.

When James Rothchild put it up for sale for £24 million in 2015 the Rushbrooke Hall Estate extended to 696ha (1,720a), including 6ha (15a) of parkland and gardens, and was bought by a local family farming enterprise. They not only farm the fields on the estate but have also developed a commercial market garden within the walled garden.

RUSHBROOKE HALL

1821 engraving by T. Higham, when the seat of Col. Rushbrooke, of the south front of the mansion after the earlier alterations in the Georgian style. The image shows a view looking across the pond with cows and sheep grazing in the park. (© The Trustees of the British Museum, British Library Museum Number 1902,0818.241.)

Although there is no known documentary evidence, it has been suggested that the powerful Jermyn family’s mansion was built on the site of an earlier medieval manor house. The U-shaped red brick house was one of the most important sixteenth century houses in Suffolk. It was created around a courtyard with the main range along the north side of the moat and two projecting ranges to the east and west. The outer walls rose directly above the inner edge of the moat. It had polygonal turrets at the four outer corners with access to the main range via a bridge from the south side. Sir Jermyn Davers altered the house during the first half of the eighteenth century with the insertion of Georgian windows and other decorative features, although its rectangular U-shape was maintained. The map accompanying the tithe apportionment of 1839 shows an additional bridge on the east side giving access from the mansion to an orchard, walled garden and pleasure grounds.

It was not until Lord Rothchild bought the property that any further refurbishment and modernisation took place, but as the work was being finished World War II broke out and the house became a Red Cross convalescent home for ex-servicemen. After the war there was a period when an institutional role was sought, but it was finally decided to demolish the deteriorating building in 1961, although it was destroyed by fire before that was completed.

The Rothchild family built a new home attached to the nearby walled garden. The moated site, including a small cottage built from the remains of the mansion, were incorporated into the pleasure grounds of this new house. Today, in addition to the surviving above ground remains such as brick revetting, bases to towers, the brick bridge and causeway, extensive remains of the original house remain underground.

RUSHBROOKE PARK

Hodskinson’s 1783 map showing the main south-east to north-west vistas centred on the Hall, with a further narrow vista through a plantation to the south. A ‘tongue’ of parkland north-west of the mansion runs northward for a short distance, possibly a ghost of another vista. A remote pond lies some way north-west of the mansion.

A park at Rushbrooke is known to have been in existence by 1703, although as one of the most high-status estates in Suffolk during the sixteenth century it seems likely it had much earlier origins. During the early-eighteenth century the Davers family expanded their park and established a number of fashionable vistas radiating out from the Hall. Kirby’s 1736 map outlines a large irregularly-shaped park with the parish church just outside the north-east boundary. This is shown in more detail on Hodskinson’s 1783 map with a plantation to the south and shelterbelt of trees along its northern boundary. It had a wide vista from the south-east centred on Bradford St George parish church through the ancient woodland of Links Wood, now called Rushbrooke Wood, that crossed the old north to south Roman ‘Links Road’. It continued within Rushbrooke Park with an avenue of trees along the drive leading to the south front of the mansion. There was a further vista to the north-west that appears to roughly continue this north-west to south-east axis, passing slightly north of a large ornamental pond, developed from a tributary of the River Lark, that flows north-westward through Bury St Edmunds. At this time it was the estate of the sixth baronet Sir Charles Davers. Writing in 1784 François de Rochefoucauld commented that he maintained his house rather badly and that ‘His park is also neglected: if the grass didn’t grow naturally here, there wouldn’t be any’.

Diagram based on the map accompanying the 1839 tithe apportionment for the parish of Rushbrooke showing moated Rushbrooke Hall within its pleasure gardens enclosure with parkland to the south and west. The vistas and drives are shown south of the mansion with possible historic vistas to north and north-west indicated by field boundaries. The remote canal is west of the mansion near to the River Lark.

By the time of the map accompanying the 1839 tithe apportionment the estate had been owned for over thirty years by the Rushbrooke family and the main entrances into the park were concentrated to the south where the old entrance vista and drive from the south-east had an entrance lodge, although the drive appears to have lost its avenue of trees. There was a further south-west vista cutting through the plantation of trees that was shown on the 1783 map. The vista terminated at a field boundary, although its drive from the mansion splayed out to the parish boundary with Little Welnetham (also spelt Whelnetham) to the south and west to join the main road between Sudbury and Bury St Edmunds, now the A134, in the village of Sicklemere. Here it is named on the tithe map as a ‘Carriage Road to Hall’ and had a lodge at the entrance. Earlier shown on Hodskinson’s map, the north-west vista was now shorter, turning eastward to a farm well before reaching the Hall. Only four years earlier the OS map showed it with an entrance lodge where it meets the road to Bury St Edmunds, which suggests it had been a main entrance and drive for the Hall that had ceased to be used a short time earlier. The shape of the fields suggests there may have been another historic vista to the north on the central axis of the mansion, possibly the ghost of an earlier entrance drive dating back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century that was inaccurately shown on Hodskinson’s map to have started slightly to the north-west of the mansion.

By 1839 the parkland to the east of the mansion had been converted to paddock and an area to the north, now fenced off from the rest of the park, had been turned to pasture. Although the fashion for geometric and formal parks and gardens had been waning during the eighteenth century, the apparent contraction of the park in favour of arable fields shown to the west and north of the mansion site and perhaps also with an element of neglect, the landscape park at Rushbrooke moved towards a more ‘naturalistic’ feel, as championed by Capability Brown, but with a number of elements from its past still apparent in vistas or the ghosts of previous vistas.

First shown on Hodskinson’s map, the ornamental pond near the River Lark and west of the mansion is suggested to have been the work of Sir Jermyn Davers at the same time that he made major alterations to the house in the first half of the eighteenth century, a time when a few other remote pleasure gardens were being developed in Suffolk. The tithe map shows it to be a straight-sided canal with angled ends that had a small island at each end and a boat house on the north bank. An enclosure called the ‘Glade’ and plantation of trees to the east continuing the alignment.

Within the reduced area of parkland and clearly visible from the Hall, an irregularly-shaped pond lay south of the moat with a small round pond and another thin canal to the west. For William Robinson, writing in The Garden in 1873, the mansion occupied a ‘commanding site in a beautifully undulating park’ although it seems he felt more could be done to fulfil its full potential when he continued ‘…it has all the elements of landscape beauty ready to be worked up into a handsome picture by the eye of genius and the hand of taste.’

The 1884 OS map showing Rushbrooke Hall, its park and surrounding arable fields. A few trees survive from the earlier avenue along the drive to the south-east. The south-western vista and splayed drives are still discernible. The ghost of a north-west vista is also apparent in the field boundaries, although by this time it was now the entrance to Hall Farm, with an un-named building at the entrance suggestive of a former entrance lodge to the Hall. A curving track towards Rushbrooke village was the rear entrance to walled garden. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html)

By 1884 the parkland appears to have expanded having taken in the paddock and pasture it had previously lost. The most wooded area was to the south of the moated site with a number of freestanding trees, remnants of previous avenues and gaps between them forming the remains of the vistas. The north-western area of parkland was much more sparsely treed. By now the narrow ornamental canal just west of the house, believed to have had its origins in the sixteenth century, had been filled-in, although marking the route of a footpath running north towards the village.

At the turn of the twentieth century the park had once more contracted, losing a strip along its southern boundary and much of the south-western portion to arable. A footpath towards the village now formed the park’s western boundary. It stayed approximately this size for the next fifty years. After the moated Hall was demolished and a new house built against a wall of the walled garden, an earlier secondary track between the village and walled garden become the main entrance drive. The two entrance lodges to the south-east and south-west had gone, although tracks still mark the old drives to the south of the site. At the time of the sale in 2015 just 6ha (15a) of parkland and gardens survived around the moated site, the rest had been turned to arable. A shelterbelt of trees to the south represents the remains of the plantation and the north-western shelterbelt and a number of mature trees survive on the site. From near the church, the new drive curves its way through parkland dotted with mature nineteenth and twentieth century trees. New avenues have been established along the earlier ‘vista’ drives that are now part of a network of tracks, some of which are public footpaths. A sinuous line of trees shown on early maps leading to the village is today marked by a slight hollow suggestive of the route of an ancient lane or ‘hollow way’ connecting the Hall and village that had long since become obsolete is now marked by an avenue of trees.

The extent of Rushbrooke Park as shown on the 1905 OS map. An area of parkland west of the mansion had been lost to arable fields with a footpath, now a public right of way, marking the park’s western boundary. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html)

THE PLEASURE GARDENS
By 1840 pleasure gardens around the Hall sat in an irregularly-shaped enclosure within the surrounding parkland. The house lay in its south-west corner with views directly over parkland and near the front of the house a subsidiary drive branched off the main drive towards the stables that were attached to outside of the east wall of the walled garden. The surrounding moat terminated to the east and west along its north arm to give a wide area of lawn directly accessed from the house. From here a path encircled an orchard and, surrounded by a belt of trees, led to the rear of the walled garden and out across parkland to the parish church. A further orchard lay south of the walled garden and an area of garden called ‘Walnut Tree Paddock’ lay to the east of the subsidiary drive. The polygonal walled garden had an angled eastern end suggesting it was added to existing stables. It was laid out with perimeter and cross beds and a centrally-placed building, which is likely to be a freestanding glasshouse such as an orangery.

The 1884 OS map showing the irregularly-shaped pleasure garden enclosure with shelterbelts of trees to the north and east and the moated house lying in the south-west corner. The main entrance courtyard of the mansion had a circular drive and cross-paths with a secondary entrance bridge to the east. The main area of gardens lay to the north of the house with raised embankment and terrace walk to the west. The north arm of the moat terminated to allow direct access to winding paths. From here, to the east a path led through trees and shrubs towards the walled garden. A pond lay directly to the north of the house and beyond a formal oval-shaped garden with surrounding and cross-paths. The walled garden was now divided into two sections. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html)

Little changed in the pleasure grounds during the nineteenth century except the addition of a more formal garden arrangement north of the mansion. On the central axis of the house, this included paths surrounding a small pond leading to an oval-shaped garden with perimeter and cross paths and the raised embankment topped by a terrace walk to the west. By the beginning of the twentieth century the lower garden had been simplified to an oval-shaped lawn with the pond replaced by flowerbeds, remaining much the same until the house was demolished. By 1884 the walled garden had a dividing wall with glasshouses attached to its south side and back sheds behind.

Today the moated site includes a roughly rectangular island raised above the surrounding ground level with the wide water-filled moat incorporated into the gardens of Home Farm, the twentieth century house attached to the walled garden. Little survives of the pleasure gardens, although LiDAR images suggest their ghost can be seen in raised areas such as the terraced embankment. The walled garden has been divided into four segments by the addition of hedges and is now used as a commercial market garden with a modern glasshouse on the south side of the dividing wall.

SOURCES:
Barker, H. R., West Suffolk Illustrated, 1907.
Bidwells Estate Agency, Cambridge, The Rushbrooke Estate sales particulars, 2015.
Birch, Mel, Suffolk’s Ancient Sites Historic Places, 2004.
Copinger, W. A., The Manors of Suffolk, Vol. 6, 1910.
Martin, Edward, ‘Garden canals in Suffolk’ in East Anglia’s History: Studies in Honour of Norman Scarfe, 2002.
Roberts, W. M., Lost Country Houses of Suffolk, 2010.
Robinson, William, The Garden. An Illustrated Weekly Journal, Vol III, 1874.
Sandon, Eric, Suffolk Houses, A Study of Domestic Architecture, 1977.
Scarfe, Norman, editor and translator of François de La Rochefoucauld, A Frenchman’s Year in Suffolk, 1784, 1988.
Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Proceedings, Vol. XXXII, Part 2, 1971.
Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Excursions, Vol. XXXIX, Part 2, 1997.
Tracy, Charles, ‘Colonel Robert Rushbrooke, M.P., J.P. (1779–1845): Grand Tourist, Connoisseur, Collector, Amateur Architect and Wood Carver’ in Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, Proceedings, Vol. XL, Part 3, 2003.
Williamson, Tom, Suffolk’s Gardens and Parks, 2000.

St Edmundsbury Chronicle, http://www.stedmundsburychronicle.co.uk/Chronicle/1700-1812.htm (accessed 1 August 2018)
https://family.rothschildarchive.org/estates/77-rushbrooke-hall (accessed February 2018).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Davers,_6th_Baronet (accessed March 2023).
https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-houses-for-sale-and-property-news/rushbrooke-estate-exceptional-estate-for-sale-in-suffolk-71732#OmWJIvXlKLtQUjC4.99 (accessed February 2018).
https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/search?q=Davers (accessed January 2021).

Kirby’s 1736 map of Suffolk.
Hodskinson’s Map of Suffolk in 1783.
1840 (surveyed) tithe map and 1839 apportionment.
1884 (surveyed 1882 to 1883) Ordnance Survey map.
1905 (revised 1903) OS map.
1927 (revised 1924 to 1925) OS map.
1952 (revised 1950) OS map.
2023 Google aerial map (Imagery © Bluesky, CNES / Airbus, Getmapping plc, Infoterra Lts & Bluesky, Maxar Technologies, Map data © 2023).

Heritage Assets:
Suffolk Historic Environment Record (SHER): RBK 001, RBK 016, RBK 018, BSG 012.
Church of St Nicholas (Grade I), Historic England No: 1377019.
Moated site, formerly the site of Rushbrooke Hall, 400m south-west of Poplar Meadow. Historic England Scheduled Ancient Monument No: 33294.

Suffolk Record Office (now Suffolk Archives):
SRO (Bury St Edmunds) HA 507/2/9/3/21. Assignment of a term of 1000 years, the manor and advowson of Rushbrooke, advowson of Little Welnetham, Rushbrooke Hall and Park, 29 September 1740.
SRO (Bury St Edmunds) HA 507/2/222. Partition and settlement of the estate of the late Sir Charles Davers, 1808.
SRO (The Hold, Ipswich) HD 4052/40/3. Engraving, 1823.
SRO (The Hold, Ipswich) HD 2833/1/SC345/2. Sales particulars, 25 October 1921.

The National Archives, Kew SC01009. Sales particulars, the Rushbrooke Hall Estate, 8 October 1919.

Site ownership: Private

Study written: April 2023

Type of Study: Desktop

Written by: Tina Ranft

Amended: October 2025