In Essex, by the river Cam, Audley End still unfurls a monumental façade — the remnant of a palace once so immense that the king himself, it is said, judged it too big. Built in the early seventeenth century on the ruins of a dissolved abbey, it is the last and most sumptuous of the great houses born of the English Renaissance.
From abbey to palace
The estate was that of Walden Abbey, dissolved by Henry VIII and given to his chancellor Thomas Audley — hence the name of the place. In the early seventeenth century his grandson, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk and Lord Treasurer of James I, set out to build there the largest private house in the kingdom. Completed around 1614, Audley End had hundreds of rooms, two immense courts, and rivalled the royal palaces. It was the culmination of the tradition of the prodigy houses: to build ever larger to dazzle and, one day, to receive the king.
Excess and decline
Legend relates that James I, on a visit, let slip that the house was 'too big for a king, though it might do for a lord treasurer' — an acid remark on the means (and perhaps the embezzlement) of his minister. Indeed Thomas Howard fell soon after into disgrace, accused of misappropriation. The house, ruinous to maintain, was reduced by more than half over the centuries: what survives, already imposing, is only a part of the original palace. Audley End thus closes, on a note of pride and fall, the great century of English houses — just before the classicism of Inigo Jones changed the rules of the game.
What to see
- The monumental Jacobean façade, remnant of the original palace.
- The great Hall with its carved screen and roof.
- The apartments and decoration of the Howard house.
- The landscaped park (later redesigned by Capability Brown).
Did you know?
Audley End was so sumptuous that the Crown ended by buying it: at the end of the seventeenth century, King Charles II acquired it to make it a royal residence, close to the Newmarket races. The house of a minister thus became, for a time, a king's palace — a late irony after James I's quip, who had found it 'too big for a king'. A subject's excess had ended by catching up with the Crown itself.
Practical information
Audley End lies near Saffron Walden, in Essex, north of London. It is today a site in the care of English Heritage, open to the public with its gardens and park. Opening hours and days are liable to change with the seasons; it is best to check them against the official sources before visiting.
Quiz
- On the lands of what kind of establishment was Audley End built?
- A dissolved abbey (Walden)
- A Norman castle
- A theatre
- Which minister of James I had Audley End built?
- Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk
- William Cecil
- Francis Bacon
- What does legend say of James I's remark about the house?
- That it was 'too big for a king'
- That it was too modest
- That it looked like Hampton Court