Great Houses & Gardens of East Anglia

5 - 25 June 2012

Tour Highlights

Join Richard Heathcote, author, TV presenter and director of Carrick Hill, Adelaide, to explore the East Anglia of Richard's youth, where he first gained an abiding love of landscape, garden history and heritage architecture. Margaret Heathcote will assist Richard as tour manager.

• Highlights of this tour include
• • Journey through haunting landscapes that inspired Dickens (David Copperfield), and natives like Rupert Brooke, L.P. Hartley, Arthur Ransom, Constable, Cotman and Gainsborough.
• • Go boating on the Broads, explore fenland history at Wicken Fen, and walk the salt marshes at Cley and Salthouse Reserves to view their unique bird life.
• • Visit Humphry Repton's superb landscape garden at Sheringham Park, Beth Chatto's inspiring garden, Capability Brown's Audley End, and Helmingham Hall Gardens.
• • Visit the stately homes of Oxburgh, Felbrigg, Blickling, Holkham, Houghton, Somerleyton, Melford, the Royal estate at Sandringham, and Anglesey Abbey.
• • Make special private visits to The Manor at Hemingford Grey made famous as 'Green Knowe' by Lucy Boston, Lord and Lady Walpole's Mannington Hall with gardens containing thousands of roses, and the sixteenth century moated hall at Otley.
• • Visit castles at Norwich, Framlingham and Castle Rising, the great Norman cathedrals of Norwich, Ely and St. Edmundbury, and priories at Castle Acre and Walsingham.
• • Discover Lord Nelson's Burnham Thorpe, medieval Lavenham, the market town of Saffron Walden, and the Hanseatic port of King's Lynn.
• • Explore Cambridge's colleges, libraries and collections, and have evening drinks at Clare College's Scholars' garden.
• • Take part in a literary afternoon tea at Grantchester, with punting on the Granta and attend a performance at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds.

Background

East Anglia takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of the East Angles, who in turn took their name from the region of their origin, Ageln in northern Germany. This kingdom consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, which probably derive from the Danish terms for 'North folk' and South folk'. A portion of Cambridgeshire is also thought of as part of East Anglia, and some people also include Essex. Areas of Norfolk and Suffolk have gently rolling hills, but much of the area, and the western fenland of Cambridgeshire, is flat. Once vast marshland, the Norfolk Broads, which were created when the sea invaded ancient peat diggings, are now much reduced due to draining. Although this region in fact has a low rainfall, its fertile soils and plentiful waterways support a thriving agriculture and have enabled the development of some of the country's most beautiful gardens.

East Anglia's history has been dictated to an extent by its environment and also by its proximity to Europe. It was an important Roman centre, home to cities such as Venta Icenorum (Norwich). During the Roman period Christianity was introduced here; East Anglia has a number of important saints with famous pilgrim shrines. Although most cities in England declined when the Romans departed, Norwich remained relatively prosperous during the so-called 'Dark Ages'. In the tenth century, for example, Norwich had its own mint, a sign of prosperity during the Middle Ages. East Anglia sporadically became the most powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Its eastern location, however, also made it a target for the Danish Vikings, who plundered its settlements but eventually also promoted commerce here.

The East Anglian fenlands played an important role in Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Normans; the fabled hero Hereward the Wake was able to hold out against the invaders by exploiting local knowledge of its treacherous marshes. At the time of the Norman Conquest, Norwich was one of the largest cities in England, a status it was to retain until the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. It owed its prosperity to the River Wensum, which provided trade access to the sea. Before the invention of the steam engine, riverine transport was vital to trade, as this was the only way bulky cargoes could be carried. A measure of East Anglia's prosperity at this time is the fact that Domesday Book records twenty-five churches in Norwich alone. The Normans built powerful castles throughout Norfolk and Suffolk not only for defence against invaders but to establish their control over the subject population. Castles that dominated towns altered their plans; new 'French' districts were established around them.

The eleventh and twelfth centuries saw much ecclesiastical building activity throughout England, to such an extent that the English Romanesque style has its own particular name: 'Norman'. In East Anglia the Order of Cluny established a number of great abbeys. Despite Henry VIII's later destruction of many of these institutions, grand ruins still inflect the region's landscapes. Other monasteries, like Ely, survived because they had become cathedrals. The twelfth century saw the construction of beautiful Gothic cathedrals in the towns; Norwich cathedral has one of the most beautiful spires in England and an unmatched collection of bosses in its ceiling.

In the later Middle Ages East Anglia experienced great prosperity. This was, in large part, again due to its location. This period witnessed what is often called a 'proto-industrial' revolution in the textile producing Netherlands, which is why they have the world's densest population today. England at first produced wool for this burgeoning industry and then itself became a major cloth manufacturer. East Anglia's wool towns prospered as trade to all parts of Europe, especially the Netherlands, grew. Dutch engineers drained the fenland marshes and local burgers copied the distinctive gables of houses from Amsterdam, Ghent and Bruges. East Anglian cities became the most prosperous and densely populated in England; only London outshone Norwich. Persecuted Protestant émigrés from Europe swelled their citizenry, bringing the latest textile manufacturing technology with them. Wealthy merchants constructed some of the country's grandest churches. During the religious wars East Anglia took the Protestant side.

Agricultural prosperity enriched the great landowners who constructed East Anglia's many sixteenth- , seventeenth- and eighteenth century stately homes. Fertile soil enabled the propagation of magnificent gardens surrounding their ancestral houses. The distinctive landscapes of the region also inspired many artists and writers, such as Gainsborough and Constable. A Norwich School of landscape painting developed, influenced by the landscapists of nearby Holland. Paintings by this school, and the work of architects, gardeners, poets and novelists, all contributed to the construction of modern National identity in England, which has, since the eighteenth century, drawn heavily upon regional landscapes as a fount of inspiration.