Moyns Park is a Grade I listed Elizabethan country house located in Birdbrook

Birdbrook

Birdbrook is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is located approximately southeast of Haverhill, Suffolk and is 34km north from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Braintree and in the parliamentary constituency of Saffron Walden. The parish is part...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, CO9 4BP. The home of the Gent family until the late 19th century, it was once owned by Ivar Bryce, a friend of Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

, who stayed at the house in the summer of 1956. Ivar's wife, the A&P Heiress Josephine Hartford sister of Huntington Hartford

Huntington Hartford

George Huntington Hartford II was an American businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and art collector. The heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, he owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation...

, bought it for her husband when they got married. When Josephine died in 1992, she left the estate to Lord Ivar Mountbatten

Lord Ivar Mountbatten

Lord Ivar Alexander Michael Mountbatten, DL is the younger son of the 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven and Janet Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven...

 and George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven

George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven

George Ivar Louis Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven , styled Earl of Medina before 1970, is a British businessman, peer, and current Head of the House of Mountbatten.-Family:...

. Ivar lived in the house for a while then sold it. Ivar Bryce's niece Janet Mercedes Bryce had been married to David Mountbatten and was Janet Mountbatten the mother of Ivar and George. They were Jo Hartford Bryce's relatives by marriage so that is why she left them the estate. It is said that Fleming made final changes to his novel From Russia, with Love in the house. The house was also the location for several Hammer Horror films.
The house was also used as a residential Riding School in and around 1949, with courses in dressage, show jumping and short B.H.S courses. The chief instructor was C. Coombs M.B.E

The name Moyns is believed to have its origins in the name of the Le Moyne family who under Gilbert Le Moyne remained in England after the Norman invasion of 1066. The family ran through several major and minor lines of nobles and gentry such as the De Warrens, Gents, Darbys, Dalstons (of Cumberland), and many others. The family is now linked to many others by marriage, e.g. Speakmans, Boutflowers, Glasses, Chenevix-Trenchs, and more.

The area in which the park is located has long been linked to these families, the Le Moynes once had lands that encompassed Hedingham Castle and other villages over a swathe of Essex. The Gents held their first court at Moyns in the early 16th century and the estate grew and continued to do so under Sir Thomas Gent (Queen Elizabeth's Baron of the Exchequer, Sargeant-at-Law and later judge).