- Heritage

Waverley Abbey

Fragments of the church and monastic buildings of the first Cistercian abbey in England, founded in 1128…

Audley End House and Gardens

Audley End House is largely an early 17th-century country house just outside Saffron Walden, Essex, south of Cambridge, England. It was once a palace in all but name and renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. Audley End is now only one-third of its original size, but is still large, with much to enjoy in its architectural features and varied collections. It is currently in the ownership of English Heritage…

St Botolph's Priory

St Botolph’s Priory, located in Colchester, England, was the first English Augustinian priory church, founded at the end of the eleventh century from the Anglo-Saxon minster community of Colchester. Only the ruined remains of the nave survive today, under the care of English…

Hadleigh Castle

Hadleigh Castle in the English county of Essex overlooks the Thames estuary from a ridge to the south of the town of Hadleigh. Built in the 1230s during the reign of King Henry III, the structure is the most important late-medieval castle in Essex and is now preserved by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. The ruins of the castle are the most prominent historical landmark in the local surrounding area and provided part of the name for the newly formed borough of Castle Point in 1974…

Hill Hall

Hill Hall, located near Epping, Essex, England is a recently restored Elizabethan mansion. Although owned by English Heritage, the building consists of many private apartments. Limited tours are available to see the internal period wall paintings. Originally built for Sir Thomas Smith during the reign of Elizabeth I. Construction was carried out over several intervals (1567-8, 1572-3)interspersed between stints as ambassador to France. The Smith family were in occupation until the mid 19th century. It was subsequently to become a prison of war camp during WW.11 and later a womans prison until a fire in 1969. It has since become part of the heritage…

Lexden Earthworks

The banks and ditches of a series of late Iron Age defences protecting the western side of Camulodunum – pre-Roman Colchester. There are also many pre-Roman graves hereabouts, including Lexden Tumulus, allegedly the burial place of the British chieftain Cunobelinus…

Mistley Towers

Two porticoed Classical towers, which stood at each end of a grandiose but highly unconventional Georgian church, designed by Robert Adam in 1776…

Prior's Hall Barn

One of the finest surviving medieval barns in eastern England, tree-ring dated to the mid-15th century, with a breathtaking aisled interior and crown post roof, the product of some 400 oaks…

St John's Abbey Gate

This pinnacled gatehouse, elaborately decorated in East Anglian ‘flushwork’, is the sole survivor of the wealthy Benedictine abbey of St John. It was built c.1400 to strengthen the abbey’s defences following the Peasants’ Revolt. Later part of the mansion of the Royalist Lucas family, the gatehouse was bombarded and stormed by Parliamentarian soldiers during the Civil War siege…

Tilbury Fort

The curve and narrowness of the river here made it a suitable place to construct forts for the defence of London against foreign invaders. The first permanent fort at Tilbury was a D-shaped blockhouse built in 1539 by Henry VIII and initially called the "Thermitage Bulwark", because it was on the site of a hermitage dissolved in 1536. The Tilbury blockhouse was designed to cross-fire with a similar structure at New Tavern, Gravesend. During the Armada campaign, the fort was reinforced with earthworks and a palisade, and a boom of chains, ships’ masts, and cables was stretched across the Thames to Gravesend, anchored by lighters. The Fort was rebuilt under Charles I and is now owned by English Heritage…