Next Stop: Ian & Eileen's

We said our goodbyes to London as we boarded the train at King’s Cross Station.

This point of departure was opened to passengers in 1852. Designed by Lewis Cubitt to be simple and functional, it was at the time the largest railway station in Britain. The Great Northern Railway transported us to Royston station where we were gathered by Ian for a three-day stay in the village of Steeple Morden, just outside of Cambridge.

Our homebase is Ian and Eileen's farmhouse built in 1755 (more about that later).

This afternoon's destination was Madingley Hall and an explore of its gardens. The Shire Manor of Madingley was granted to John Hynde in 1543 by an Act of Parliament, “upon condition to pay £10 to the sheriff and members of the county.”

What began as an extravagant hunting lodge, built to flaunt the wealth of the newly-rich Hynde, became a family home when it was passed to his son, Sir Francis Hynde, in 1550, he made it the family home. Sir John Hynde Cotton inherited the Hall in 1712 and during the 40 years that he owned it he transformed it from a paneled Tudor house into a Baroque building, and closed the medieval village street, with the aim of removing the villagers’ houses from sight.

In January 1861, Edward, Prince of Wales, arrived at Madingley. His mother, Queen Victoria had rented the Hall as a residence for her son whilst he studied at the University of Cambridge. However, his stay was brief and his departure sudden, due to “the great calamity at Windsor” - Prince Albert’s unexpected death. It changed hands a couple of more times before the University purchased it in 1948 for the sum of £50,000.

We were there to meander about in the glorious gardens that surround Madingley Hall which reflect centuries of change. Although the Hall was built between 1543 and 1547, the earliest recorded image of the gardens is an engraving dating from 1705, showing a formal, Dutch-style garden to the north and east of the Hall.

This garden was replaced by the prevailing trend for naturalistic parkland and in 1756, Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was employed to create a fashionable landscape garden. His style of smooth undulating grass and scattered trees was the height of fashion, and swept away almost all traces of the existing gardens’ formality.

The North Garden was adapted by Colonel Walter Harding between 1908 and 1914; notably the creation of formal terraces and the Croquet Lawn in the Edwardian style. He planted many newly introduced trees which today have matured to form the framework of the tree collection.

The pet cemetery, with the engraved grave markers, added a level of the Harding family humanity to this massive place. Poor Wasp was lost in 1921.

The Church of St Mary Magdalene lies just inside the gates leading to Madingley Hall. At one time the Church would have been in the center of the main village street, however, these houses were removed in the mid 18th century by Sir John Hynde Cotton as they encroached on his view from the Hall and, with the help of Capability Brown, the church was incorporated into the park so that it now appears to be part of the Madingley Hall Estate. The fortunes of the Hall and Church have been closely intertwined over the centuries and are reflected in the number of family monuments erected in the Church.

The end of our first day's outing found us on the balcony, overlooking the gardens, where we caught up on each other's newest news and reminisced about the last time we were here 11 years ago. What memories!

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HAERR TRIPPIN'

Next Stop: Ian & Eileen's

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