Audley End House

by Andrew Hann

Audley End was one of the greatest houses of Jacobean England and tells a story of favour and disgrace, wealth and poverty, and endless architectural change at the hands of a sequence of ambitious owners. It was originally built on the foundations of a Benedictine monastery, Walden Abbey, which had been founded in the mid 12th century. In 1538 the abbey was closed by King Henry VIII, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He gave the land and buildings to his Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley, and made him the 1st Baron Audley of Walden.