Одыли Энд: Ескі патшалық резиденциясы және сарай үйі

Country house and former royal residence

Audley End House is a largely early 17th century country house outside Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It is a prodigy house, known as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. Audley End is now one third of its original size, but is still large, with much to enjoy in its architectural features and varied collections. The house shares some similarities with Hatfield House, except that it is stone clad as opposed to brick. It is currently in the stewardship of English Heritage but long remained the family seat of the Barons Braybrooke, heirs to the estate of whom retain a portion of the contents of the house, the estate, and the right to repurchase as an incorporeal hereditament. The house was a key stop during Elizabeth I's Summer Progress of 1578. The progress was to be, like her progresses to Cambridge and Oxford in 1564 and 1566, filled with scholarship, learned debates, and theatrical diversions. Writers and scholars from nearby Cambridge University used the occasion to write papers and speeches. One of these was Gabriel Harvey who by 1578 had been appointed professor of rhetoric at Cambridge. For the Audley End presentations, Harvey had prepared a series of lectures to be delivered to prominent members of the court in attendance with the Queen. Among them was the Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Noted English naval office bureaucrat and diarist Samuel Pepys visited Audley End and described it his diary entry for 8 October 1667. At this time, the house was on the scale of a great royal palace, and became one when Charles II bought it in 1668 for £50,000 for use as a home when attending the races at Newmarket. It was returned to the Suffolks in 1701. Around 1708, Sir John Vanbrugh was commissioned to work on the site, and parts of the house were gradually demolished until it was reduced to its current size.

After the war, the ninth Lord Braybrooke resumed possession. In 1948 the house was sold to the Ministry of Works, the predecessor of English Heritage. In 2014, an English Heritage report identified that there is a high risk of flooding at Audley End. It detailed an "extensive threat to the estate affecting a wide zone alongside the River Cam", affecting access, masonry and land surface.

The Capability Brown parkland includes many of the neo classical monuments, although some are not in the care of English Heritage. The grounds are divided by the River Granta, which is crossed by several ornate bridges one of which features on the back cover of the BBC Gardeners' World Through the Years book,

With help from an 1877 garden plan and William Cresswell's journal from 1874, the walled kitchen garden was restored by Garden Organic in 1999 from an overgrown, semi derelict state. Completed in 2000, it was opened by Prince Charles and features in a book presented to him on his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles. It now looks as it would have done in late Victorian times; full of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers which have been supplied to the Dorchester Hotel.

The house contains a number of paintings, many still the property of the family of the Barons Braybrooke.

The house and grounds have been used in popular television and radio shows, including Flog It!, Antiques Roadshow and Gardeners' Question Time. The exteriors and gardens were also used for the 1964 feature film Woman of Straw starring Gina Lollobrigida, Sean Connery and Ralph Richardson. During 2017, scenes were filmed at Audley End for Trust produced by Danny Boyle and based on the life of John Paul Getty III. On 7 September 2018, scenes were shot for The Crown. Previously, interior shots of the Library and Great Hall had been used to portray rooms in Balmoral Castle, Windsor Castle and Eton College. Audley End appears in a popular series of videos on English Heritage's YouTube channel featuring the character of Mrs Crocombe, head cook at the house during the 1880s.