Wimpole Estate — Best Working Estate - Beyond Downton Abbey: A Guide to 25 Great Houses - page 63

If you're ready to wear your tiara and your wellies at the same time, Wimpole Estate is the
place to visit. It combines a stately mansion full of jaw-dropping interiors with a chance to
visit Home Farm, its working estate.
Home Farm has a full range of farm activities and is known for its wonderful rare breed
animals. Bagot goats, Longhorn cattle, Shire horses, Berkshire pigs (Queen Victoria's fa-
vorite breed of pig), and Light Sussex chickens are raised here. Whether you choose to
participate or just observe, there's entertainment for everyone. Watch the piglets escape
their pen, help collect eggs, try your hand at scything, learn to sheer a sheep or work with
a magnificent Shire horse. Although some of these activities require advance booking,
there are plenty of seasonal drop-in activities.
For those seriously interested in how farming shapes lives, check out the MyFarm website
at www.my-farm.org.uk . This is a massive farming experiment that reconnects people and
food by letting a 10,000-member online community debate and vote on important farming
decisions at Wimpole Estate's Home Farm every month.
Who built it…who owns it
The estate was once the site of a medieval moated manor house and surrounding deer
park. Wimpole Hall had a long series of owners, starting with Thomas Chicheley who
completed the oldest part of the house in the 1640s. The wings of the house were added
for Edward, Lord Harley in the 1720s. The library was constructed in 1730.
Over its history, Wimpole's owners commissioned some of England's finest architects to
work on the mansion. From 1740 until 1895, five generations of the Earl of Hardwicke
employed a series of architects who refined the interior of Wimpole to what it is today.
Visitors can see examples of the works of James Gibbs (18 th century), Sir John Soane
(18 th century) and H. E. Kendall (19 th century).
Elsie “Bird” Bambride, daughter of author Rudyard Kipling, lived at the estate for 38
years and is credited with revitalizing the house and gardens during the 20 th century. Mrs.
Bambridge gave Wimpole Estate to the National Trust in 1976. Bambridge's bequest also
provided an endowment, funded in part by proceeds from her father's writings.
Rudyard Kipling's home, Bateman's, is also in the care of the National Trust. Compared
to gigantic Wimpole, Bateman's is minuscule — no doubt the reason behind Rudyard
Kipling's remark during his one visit to his daughter's great estate.
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