Updating a legacy

Turvey House, Bedfordshire The home of Charlie and Grace Hanbury Never previously described in COUNTRY LIFE, this fine neo-Classical house has recently been adapted and refurbished by the seventh generation of the family that built it. Jeremy Musson reports

- Jeremy Musson

BEDFORDSHIRE was a crucible for good neo-Classical country houses and interiors. One that has never been recorded before in COUNTRY LIFE, however, is the stately Turvey House, recently adapted and refurbished with advice by Peter Inskip, for a new generation—the seventh in the same family as the John Higgins who built it. It’s one of several buildings in and around the village of Turvey associated with the Higgins family, on land that for centuries had previously belonged to the Mordaunt family.

The Mordaunts, Barons of Turvey and, from 1628, Earls of Peterborough, were the principal landowners in the area from the 13th century and their outstanding and memorable tombs can be found in the parish church. In the 17th century, they also inherited Drayton in Northamptonshire. By 1786, however, the 5th Earl of Peterborough was obliged to sell off his Manors at Turvey and Clifton and 19 farms.

John Higgins of nearby Weston Underwood joined forces with his father’s first cousin, Charles (a rich grocer and sheriff of London in 1786–7), and London banker William Fuller to acquire their Turvey estates. Charles Higgins took Turvey Abbey and the land around that house, as John created a new estate to the north and west of the village. The two Higgins’ properties were managed with an unusual degree of co-operation thereafter and both sides of the family contributed towards improvements made to both the parish church and village. Turvey Abbey was later embellished with fragments from the demolished Jacobean house at Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire and is now a Benedictine convent.