A tale of transformation

Sennowe Park, Norfolk, part 1 The home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards In the first of two articles, John Goodall looks at the creation of a Georgian lodge and its Edwardian transformation at the hands of a local architect into a luxurious home

- John Goodall

SENNOWE PARK is among the most magnificent and perfectly preserved of all Britain's great Edwardian country houses. Remodelled from 1905 by the Norwich architect George Skipper for the colourful figure of Thomas Albert Cook—the grandson and namesake of the founder of the eponymous travel agency—it exemplifies the luxurious and opulent tastes of the period. The Edwardian building, however, incorporates the fabric of an earlier house and it's only by tracing the history of this property that the form and evolution of what we see today can be properly understood.

It has been speculated that the story of Sennowe might stretch back into the Middle Ages. In fact, as most recent authorities agree, it is a near certainty that the earliest parts of the building are Georgian and were constructed on a virgin site by Thomas Wodehouse, youngest son of Sir Armine Wodehouse of Kimberley Hall, Norfolk. The date universally given for the creation for the house—without any supporting evidence—is 1774. From the limited evidence available, however, there is a much stronger circumstantial case for supposing that it was built in 1791-92.

To explain: Sennowe stood in the parish of Great Ryburgh and this manor was inherited in 1755 as part of a wider estate by Thomas's aunt, Mary Bacon. There is no reference to any large property at Sennowe at this time and Mary herself seems to have lived at Park Street, London W1. As a younger son, Thomas had no inheritance of his own and, in May 1778, Mary, who never married, conveyed all her land in Norfolk to him 'from and after my decease'. According to her will, she confirmed this arrangement in 1780, but it only came into effect when she died a decade later (her will was proved on January 15, 1791).