Country House in Cambridgeshire
Mid-20th century (1978)
JA 2012
- The Bedfords sold the estate in the early-20th century, and after passing through another pair of private hands, it was sold, in the middle of the century, to a circus, which set up a wildlife park in the grounds, & used parts of the house for a café & storage (much being left semi-derelict). Little of any substance was done to the house during their tenure, other than monkeys being over-wintered in the front range of the building escaping their cages & overturned an electric heater, causing the fire that gutted the front range, destroying both fine 18th-century panelled interiors, & much potential evidence of the building’s earliest origins; however it was this fire that revealed the Tudor fireplaces that had been panelled over, and the mullioned windows that had been immured by the construction of the 17th-century extension.