Hawstead Place
Once in a sixteenth century deer park, the moated mansion of Hawstead Place was the home of the powerful Drury family who erected a huge statue of Hercules in honour of Elizabeth I when they entertained her in 1578. In 1656 Hawstead Place and nearby Hardwick House were sold to the Cullums, noted horticulturalists, and botanists, whose passion for plants was reflected in the gardens at Hawstead and Hardwick. Friend of the garden designer John Evelyn, Sir Dudley Cullum developed fashionable late-seventeenth/early-eighteenth century formal gardens around the mansion and moat including a surviving raised viewing terrace and likely water gardens nearby, some of the ponds survive. The site became a tenanted farm when the Cullums made their home at Hardwick in the early-eighteenth century and much of the deer park was converted for agricultural purposes. The mansion was finally demolished in 1827, the Cullums eventually selling Hawstead Place in the 1920s. Today the moat survives in a degraded condition, with the ghost of other surrounding features reflected in earthworks. Small areas of parkland now surround a farm complex and nearby there are two walled enclosures believed to be sixteenth century, plus other historic farmstead buildings such as a barn dating back to 1423.
Not open to the public except for booked events and holiday accommodation
