Henham Park

Henham Park is an estate just north of the village of Blythburgh in the English county of Suffolk. It lies at the intersection of the A12 and A145 main roads. The current owner is the Australian nobleman Keith Rous, sixth Earl of Stradbroke.

The park is the venue for the Latitude Festival of arts and music and plays host to other events throughout the year.

The original Henham lands were hunting grounds, the seat of the de la Poles Earls of Suffolk, on which they built a timber-framed structure was built with its own protective moatyard.

In 1513, King Henry VIII ordered the execution of Edmund de la Pole, and granted the property to his brother-in-law Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. He built a new Tudor house 200 yards (180 m) in front of the original timber-framed structure. One of the finest Tudor buildings of its age, the main hall was flanked on two sides by the extensive walled garden and incorporated a large courtyard.

On his death in 1545, the Crown granted Henham to Sir Arthur Hopton of Blythburgh who immediately sold the estate to Sir Anthony Rous, Knight of Dennington (Suffolk). In 1773, while the Sixth Baronet John Rous was away on a Grand Tour of Venice, a drunken butler had a mishap with a candle, which destroyed the building. The £30,000 loss represented eight year's income from the estate, and the substantial blow meant that it was to be twenty years before he could afford to rebuild.

This structure was the subject of an episode of the Channel 4 television series Time Team in January 2013.

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