A priory, a Tudor house, a garden and a legend.

The priory

In 1145 Abbot Geoffrey of St Albans founded a priory of Benedictine nuns here. Its first prioress was Christina of Markyate. The priory was dissolved in 1537.

The Tudor house

Humphrey Bourchier built a house beside the site of the priory church in 1539 to 1540. The Ferrers and Coppin families extended and remodelled it in the seventeenth century.

The house burned more than once. In the 1820s the architect Robert Lugar remodelled it in Tudor style, keeping medieval and Tudor fabric within the walls.

The park and garden

Joseph Howell laid out the park in the early nineteenth century. Around 1910 the garden designer George Dillistone made the formal garden, including a brick and timber pergola through the walled garden.

His design was published in 1913 in Gardens for Small Country Houses by Gertrude Jekyll and Lawrence Weaver. The house is listed Grade II* and the park and garden are registered Grade II.

A highwaywoman, by tradition

Local tradition says that Lady Katherine Ferrers rode out from the house at night as a highwaywoman, leaving by a hidden stair, and died of her wounds trying to return.

It is a story, not a record. Historians have found no evidence that she lived here. The tale was filmed by Gainsborough Pictures as The Wicked Lady.