Audley End House

Audley End House is a palatial country house in Saffron Walden, built between 1605 and 1614 for Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. The design involved the Earl of Northampton, the architect John Thorpe, and the mason Bernard Janssen. The house has been substantially altered and refurbished over its history, particularly in 1721 by Sir John Vanbrugh, in the 1770s for Sir John Griffin Griffin by Robert Adam, and in the 19th century when rooms were reorganised for the second, third and fourth Lord Braybrookes.

The house follows a U-shaped plan with three storeys, the principal first floor being the tallest. It is faced with ashlar and has copper roofs. All windows are of ovolo-moulded, mullioned and transomed form, with lights now mostly containing plain glass. Parapets run around all sides, concealing the roofs and pierced with strapwork decoration.

The west front elevation features a central seven-window range on the second floor with 3x2 lights. In front stands a lower, open hall block of two storeys height with a central oriel bay window of 6x4 lights and 1x4 lights on each side. Two-storey porches flank the centre, functioning as ground and first floor loggias with Ionic grouped corner shafts of black and white marble displaying profuse strapwork and grotesque decoration. The ground floor has round-headed arched doorways with early 17th-century panelled doors bearing war and peace motifs. The loggia upper floors contain pairs of openings to the front. Tower-shaped blocks with corner turrets occupy the north and south ends of the range, featuring blocked, keystoned, round-headed apertures with swept copper capping and weather-vanes. Full-height bay windows are present, with ground floor 7x2-lights, first floor 7x3-lights, and second floor 7x2-lights, with matching return windows 2 lights wide. Side elevations have matching windows, two on the inner face and one on the outer, all 3 lights wide.

The rear, east elevation opens around a court. A central seven-window range with a second parapet behind features first and second floor windows of 3x2 lights. The ground floor comprises an arcade with paired Ionic pilasters, glazed with 4-light tracery ascending in tiered semicircular arches. A central doorway has surrounding semicircular architrave in Jacobean style with inset red marble cabochons and a 2-leaved panelled door with lozenge decoration. The wings at the east ends have central 3-cant full-height bay windows with ground floor windows of 5x2 lights, first floor 5x3, and second floor 5x2 lights. Side cant windows match, all 2 lights wide, with single outer matching windows to each floor, all 3 lights wide. The inner faces of the wings to the courtyard are symmetrical with central 3-cant bay windows, central windows all 4x2 lights, side cant windows matching single light width, and single outer windows each side of the bay, matching, all 7 lights wide. Waterheads round the court are dated to 1679 on the south side and 1686 and 1786 on the north side. Inner corners between the wings and principal east facade have turrets larger than those on the west front, with windows on each face of 3x2 lights.

The south side elevation comprises two elements. To the west, the south end of the front elevation has a full-height 3-cant bay window with ground floor featuring 1x2, 5x2, 1x2 lights with wooden glazing bars to the lower lights and upper central light. The first floor has a central window of 6x3 lights with 1x3 lights on each side, and the second floor has a central window of 6x2 lights with 1x2 lights on each side. Turrets on each side have blocked round-headed openings with keystones. The range to the east has two full-height bay windows with single windows between and windows at the west end. Bay windows feature first floor 7x3 lights and second floor 7x2 lights, with return side lights matching at 2 lights wide. Between the bays is a matching 6-light window, and at the west end a matching 4-light window. The ground floor loggia arcade of nine bays, including bay windows, is now infilled with a simple 2-light window in eight bays. One bay has a framed and panelled door with upper glazed panel, positioned second from the east end. The arcade features Doric pilasters and entablature. At roof level, a large turret and tall grouped chimneys are visible along the range.

The north side elevation is similar to the south but differs as it serves as the service end. To the west, the north end of the front elevation has a full-height bay window with ground floor featuring a canted central window of only 4x2 lights with subsidiary wooden glazing bars, each pair 2x7 panes. To the east are two 2-light windows with similar glazing, lower lights being sashes. A doorway to the west has a 19th-century 4-panel flush reeded door. The first floor contains a large rectangular bay of 7x3-light windows, and the second floor has a canted central window of 6x2 lights with 1x2 lights on each side cant. First and second floor windows between projecting bays measure 3 lights wide to the west and 4 lights wide to the east. The ground floor between the bays has an early window of 4x2 lights to the west, apparently unrestored, with original twin intermediate iron mullions to each light and a doorway now cut through the lower lights. To the east is a 3x2-light window with wooden sashes in the lower lights and upper glazing bars, pairs of lights 2x7 panes, adjacent to a plain sash window. Projecting bays at ground floor have a west window of 3x2 lights and an east window of 3x1 lights.

An enclosed service courtyard abuts the north side of the house. It is single storey, constructed in brick with slate roofs. Early 19th-century segment-headed doorways are present, some with early 19th-century reeded flush-panelled doors, and windows are also segment-headed, mostly casements with glazing bars. A second larger group of buildings in an arc facing west is contiguous with the service court, some 2-storeyed and linked, with hipped slated roofs. Some are provided with paired display Roman cement chimney stacks. The whole irregular group is now colour-washed.

The interior contains principal features including the Jacobean hall with screen and contemporary north and south timber-framed newel staircases. The saloon was once the Jacobean Great Chamber and retains its ornamental plaster ceiling. Later work includes one room from a set of state apartments, an 18th-century stone staircase by Vanbrugh leading off the hall at its high end, and the refurbishment of rooms in the south range by Robert Adam. Contemporary with Adam but designed by Hobcroft is the 'Gothick' chapel in the northwest angle.

Historically, the house is the second to have been built precisely around the cloister of Walden Abbey, granted by Henry VIII in 1538 to Sir Thomas Audley. Audley's house was constructed within the church, with the north range and claustral buildings to the south. The present house, built by Thomas Howard, Lord Treasurer to James I, overlies the earlier building but had a second, larger outer court to the west. This was entirely demolished in the later 18th century except for the two surviving porches on the west front, which appear to belong to the outer court and were built in a second phase of construction with more profuse decorative style, probably to designs by John Thorpe. Research suggests the two porches were for the king and queen respectively and originally led to two similar sets of royal apartments. Later work includes the total removal in the 18th century of the east range of the inner court that contained the long gallery, council chamber and original chapel. A loggia on the south side was also infilled at this time. The house was briefly owned by King Charles II and has had owners who retained the Jacobean style in much of the later refurbishment. In 1948 it was sold to the Ministry of Works.