Hardwick House (Suffolk)
Encyclopedia
Hardwick House was a manor house near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
, owned by Sir Robert Drury, Speaker of the House of Commons of Hawstead Place, and subsequently purchased in the seventeenth century by Royalist
and former Sheriff of London Robert Cullum. Experts in Suffolk county history as well as noted authorities in antiquarian and botanical matters, the Cullum family of eight successive baronets authored works on the county and its fauna and flora. Sir Thomas Gery Cullum
, a Charterhouse
graduate, medical doctor and member of the Royal Academy
and the Linnean Society, was a well-regarded author on science and botany.
Lords of the manor
of Hardwick, the Cullum family lived at Hardwick House for almost three centuries, from 1656 until the 1920s, producing a line of Baronets who were physicians, botanists, antiquarians, authors, horticulturalists, ministers and two of whom served as Bath King of Arms for the Order of the Bath
for nearly 60 years. Ultimately, the Cullum family estate was sold during the Depression of the 1920s when the last family member died without direct heir, and it was later dismantled for building materials in 1926-1927.
Hardwick House was built on what were formerly the medieval grazing lands of St Edmundsbury Abbey, which were sold during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
. Eventually the properties fell to Sir Robert Drury of nearby Hawstead Place, a former moated manor now demolished. The Drury family lived at Hawstead for 150 years before Sir Robert – who had removed his paintings and furniture to his newly-built Hardwick House in 1610 – died in 1615 and the Drury family became extinct. The only standing remains of Hawstead are the brick gate pillars at the entrance to the manor and some other brickwork and the moat: however the painted emblematic panels of the last Lady Drury's private oratory
or chamber of meditation were transferred to Hardwick, and are now kept at Christchurch Mansion
, Ipswich
. Queen Elizabeth I
spent one night at Hawstead Place in 1578, when she was said to have knighted the owner, Sir William Drury, after he restored to her the silver-handled fan she had dropped into the moat at Hawstead Place. The Hawstead and Hardwick Estates were sold by the heirs of Robert Drury in 1656 to Sir Thomas Cullum, first Cullum Baronet
who had grown rich as a London draper and been Sheriff of London in 1646.
Hardwick House, standing one and a half miles south of Bury, was a Jacobean house
of 1612 thought to have incorporated the medieval Abbey Lodge and featured a bold portico entrance with enormous carved oak doors and the Drury coat of arms
carved above the doorway. The House was embroidered over the centuries by the Cullums who added gables, towers, ornate cut flint Tolkiensian cottage confections, gazebos, fountains, statuary and planting.
Hardwick eventually was expanded to include seven principal bedrooms, nine bachelors rooms and secondary bedrooms, twelve servants' bedrooms and three bathrooms. With its bibliophile owners, the home had several libraries. (Most of the library collection, the 'Cullum Collection', was later donated to the Bury St Edmunds Record Office, where it remains.) Hardwick House also had an extensive collection of portraits, one of which was of Sir Thomas Gargrave
, a once-powerful Yorkshire knight related to Sir Thomas Gery Cullum
's wife's family. The Cullum family portraits were bequeathed to the Borough of St Edmundsbury in 1921 by the last surviving member of the Cullum family.
The extensive grounds of Hardwick House were largely the creation of Sir Dudley Cullum
, owner of the manor between 1680 and 1720, a keen horticulturalist and the only member of the Cullum family to be an MP
– he served as a Whig for Suffolk from 1702–05. The house had a 2 acres (8,093.7 m²) kitchen garden and several other gardens: an Italian garden with rosery and flowerbeds; a lime and sycamore tree-lined avenue; and a large 'pleasure grounds', with gazebo
s, and planted with exotic trees and shrubs. The kitchen garden also had pear, peach, plum, apple, cherry, and fig trees. The so-called 'Winter Garden,' also created by Sir Dudley, had a range of glass greenhouses for his horticultural pursuits, as well as a conservatory and orangery, palm house, peach house and a vinery.
The gardens at Hardwick were created, in part, by the English horticulturalist and gardener John Evelyn
, who consulted on them with his friend Dudley Cullum. In a letter to Evelyn of 1694, Cullum expressed his delight at the effectiveness of the stove which heated his greenhouses.
The Hardwick Estate eventually came to embrace a small village of properties, including adjoining farms and cottages built by the Cullum Baronets on the initial holding. A smaller gardeners cottage adjacent to walled garden of Hardwick House was eventually expanded to be a full-scale home in its own right (known as Hardwick Manor from 1926). Hardwick became so elaborate that it came to include a Venetian indoor riding school, also being the centre of a busy social scene, with fox hunting parties often gathering on the Cullum estate.
Suffolk MP
Thomas Milner Gibson
, who lived at Theberton Hall, Suffolk, married Arethusa Susannah , the daughter of Rev Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, 8th and last Baronet and High Sheriff of Suffolk
. Their son, the last of the Cullums, was the well-known antiquarian and author George Gery Milner-Gibson-Cullum (1857–1921), F.S.A.. The house was ultimately dismantled following his death in 1921, the estate having been passed to the Crown and sold under the Intestates Estates Act 1884.
The grounds and site of the formal gardens and statuary today constitute Hardwick Heath (55 acres (222,577.3 m²) of the former Cullum estate turned into public parkland), the West Suffolk Hospital, the grounds of Hardwick Manor and housing developments. The site of Hardwick House itself is a wood bordering some original cedar and yew trees.
Many of the Drury family, as well as the Cullums, are buried at All Saints' Church in Hawstead, which has many remarkable memorials.
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, owned by Sir Robert Drury, Speaker of the House of Commons of Hawstead Place, and subsequently purchased in the seventeenth century by Royalist
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
and former Sheriff of London Robert Cullum. Experts in Suffolk county history as well as noted authorities in antiquarian and botanical matters, the Cullum family of eight successive baronets authored works on the county and its fauna and flora. Sir Thomas Gery Cullum
Thomas Gery Cullum
Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, 7th Baronet was a medical doctor educated at London Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, and who later practiced surgery at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, where he served as an alderman and DL for Suffolk...
, a Charterhouse
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
graduate, medical doctor and member of the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
and the Linnean Society, was a well-regarded author on science and botany.
Lords of the manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
of Hardwick, the Cullum family lived at Hardwick House for almost three centuries, from 1656 until the 1920s, producing a line of Baronets who were physicians, botanists, antiquarians, authors, horticulturalists, ministers and two of whom served as Bath King of Arms for the Order of the Bath
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
for nearly 60 years. Ultimately, the Cullum family estate was sold during the Depression of the 1920s when the last family member died without direct heir, and it was later dismantled for building materials in 1926-1927.
Hardwick House was built on what were formerly the medieval grazing lands of St Edmundsbury Abbey, which were sold during the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
. Eventually the properties fell to Sir Robert Drury of nearby Hawstead Place, a former moated manor now demolished. The Drury family lived at Hawstead for 150 years before Sir Robert – who had removed his paintings and furniture to his newly-built Hardwick House in 1610 – died in 1615 and the Drury family became extinct. The only standing remains of Hawstead are the brick gate pillars at the entrance to the manor and some other brickwork and the moat: however the painted emblematic panels of the last Lady Drury's private oratory
Lady Drury's Closet
Lady Drury's Closet is a series of painted wooden panels of early 17th-century date, currently installed in the room over the porch of Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich, Suffolk, England....
or chamber of meditation were transferred to Hardwick, and are now kept at Christchurch Mansion
Christchurch Mansion
Christchurch Mansion is a substantial Tudor brick mansion house within Christchurch Park on the edge of the town centre of Ipswich, Suffolk, England...
, Ipswich
Ipswich
Ipswich is a large town and a non-metropolitan district. It is the county town of Suffolk, England. Ipswich is located on the estuary of the River Orwell...
. Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
spent one night at Hawstead Place in 1578, when she was said to have knighted the owner, Sir William Drury, after he restored to her the silver-handled fan she had dropped into the moat at Hawstead Place. The Hawstead and Hardwick Estates were sold by the heirs of Robert Drury in 1656 to Sir Thomas Cullum, first Cullum Baronet
Cullum Baronets
The Cullum Baronetcy, of Hastede in Suffolk, was created in the Baronetage of England on 18 June 1660 for Thomas Cullum. It became extinct on the death of the eighth Baronet, 26 January 1855...
who had grown rich as a London draper and been Sheriff of London in 1646.
Jacobean architecture
The Jacobean style is the second phase of Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style. It is named after King James I of England, with whose reign it is associated.-Characteristics:...
of 1612 thought to have incorporated the medieval Abbey Lodge and featured a bold portico entrance with enormous carved oak doors and the Drury coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
carved above the doorway. The House was embroidered over the centuries by the Cullums who added gables, towers, ornate cut flint Tolkiensian cottage confections, gazebos, fountains, statuary and planting.
Hardwick eventually was expanded to include seven principal bedrooms, nine bachelors rooms and secondary bedrooms, twelve servants' bedrooms and three bathrooms. With its bibliophile owners, the home had several libraries. (Most of the library collection, the 'Cullum Collection', was later donated to the Bury St Edmunds Record Office, where it remains.) Hardwick House also had an extensive collection of portraits, one of which was of Sir Thomas Gargrave
Thomas Gargrave
Sir Thomas Gargrave was a Yorkshire Knight who served as High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1565 and 1569. His principal residence was at Nostell Priory, one of many grants of land that Gargrave secured during his lifetime...
, a once-powerful Yorkshire knight related to Sir Thomas Gery Cullum
Thomas Gery Cullum
Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, 7th Baronet was a medical doctor educated at London Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, and who later practiced surgery at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, where he served as an alderman and DL for Suffolk...
's wife's family. The Cullum family portraits were bequeathed to the Borough of St Edmundsbury in 1921 by the last surviving member of the Cullum family.
The extensive grounds of Hardwick House were largely the creation of Sir Dudley Cullum
Dudley Cullum
Sir Dudley Cullum, 3rd Baronet was an English Member of Parliament and horticultural author.Dudley Cullum was the son of Sir Thomas Cullum, Bart., of Badmondesfield, Wickhambrook, Suffolk. He was educated in Bury St Edmunds and at St John's College, Cambridge. He succeeded as third Baronet on 16...
, owner of the manor between 1680 and 1720, a keen horticulturalist and the only member of the Cullum family to be an MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
– he served as a Whig for Suffolk from 1702–05. The house had a 2 acres (8,093.7 m²) kitchen garden and several other gardens: an Italian garden with rosery and flowerbeds; a lime and sycamore tree-lined avenue; and a large 'pleasure grounds', with gazebo
Gazebo
A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal, that may be built, in parks, gardens, and spacious public areas. Gazebos are freestanding or attached to a garden wall, roofed, and open on all sides; they provide shade, shelter, ornamental features in a landscape, and a place to rest...
s, and planted with exotic trees and shrubs. The kitchen garden also had pear, peach, plum, apple, cherry, and fig trees. The so-called 'Winter Garden,' also created by Sir Dudley, had a range of glass greenhouses for his horticultural pursuits, as well as a conservatory and orangery, palm house, peach house and a vinery.
The gardens at Hardwick were created, in part, by the English horticulturalist and gardener John Evelyn
John Evelyn
John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...
, who consulted on them with his friend Dudley Cullum. In a letter to Evelyn of 1694, Cullum expressed his delight at the effectiveness of the stove which heated his greenhouses.
The Hardwick Estate eventually came to embrace a small village of properties, including adjoining farms and cottages built by the Cullum Baronets on the initial holding. A smaller gardeners cottage adjacent to walled garden of Hardwick House was eventually expanded to be a full-scale home in its own right (known as Hardwick Manor from 1926). Hardwick became so elaborate that it came to include a Venetian indoor riding school, also being the centre of a busy social scene, with fox hunting parties often gathering on the Cullum estate.
Suffolk MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Thomas Milner Gibson
Thomas Milner Gibson
Thomas Milner Gibson PC was a British politician.-Background and education:Thomas Milner Gibson came of a Suffolk family, but was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, where his father was serving as an officer in the army...
, who lived at Theberton Hall, Suffolk, married Arethusa Susannah , the daughter of Rev Sir Thomas Gery Cullum, 8th and last Baronet and High Sheriff of Suffolk
High Sheriff of Suffolk
This is a list of High Sheriffs of Suffolk. The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown and is appointed annually by the Crown. He was originally the principal law enforcement officer in the county and presided at the Assizes and other important county meetings...
. Their son, the last of the Cullums, was the well-known antiquarian and author George Gery Milner-Gibson-Cullum (1857–1921), F.S.A.. The house was ultimately dismantled following his death in 1921, the estate having been passed to the Crown and sold under the Intestates Estates Act 1884.
The grounds and site of the formal gardens and statuary today constitute Hardwick Heath (55 acres (222,577.3 m²) of the former Cullum estate turned into public parkland), the West Suffolk Hospital, the grounds of Hardwick Manor and housing developments. The site of Hardwick House itself is a wood bordering some original cedar and yew trees.
Many of the Drury family, as well as the Cullums, are buried at All Saints' Church in Hawstead, which has many remarkable memorials.
Sources
External links
Further reading
- See also Thomas Gery CullumThomas Gery CullumSir Thomas Gery Cullum, 7th Baronet was a medical doctor educated at London Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge, and who later practiced surgery at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, where he served as an alderman and DL for Suffolk...
, Thomas Milner GibsonThomas Milner GibsonThomas Milner Gibson PC was a British politician.-Background and education:Thomas Milner Gibson came of a Suffolk family, but was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, where his father was serving as an officer in the army...