Cole Park is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

moated country house off Grange Lane, in the parish of

St Paul Malmesbury Without St Paul Malmesbury Without is a civil parish surrounding Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. Its main settlements are the village of Corston and the hamlets of Milbourne and Rodbourne (not to be confused with the Rodbourne suburb of Swindon). G ...

, about south of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. It stands on land once known as Cowfold that was owned in the Middle Ages by the Abbey of Malmesbury, and in the Tudor period was a royal stud.

History

Cole Park on a 1920s Ordnance Survey map

The house is in the grounds of a former medieval monastic deer-park, originally known as Cowfold, once owned by the

Abbey of Malmesbury Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteri ...

William of Colerne William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conqu ...

was the abbot from 1260 to 1296, from whom the name Cole Park may derive. The abbey had a lodge on the site which was still standing in 1540. The estate passed to the Crown at the Dissolution, and in the Tudor period Cole Park was a royal stud-farm, which in 1625 was leased by Sir George Marshall. In the 1650s the Crown sold it to

Hugh Audley Hugh Audley (baptised 13 January 1577 – 15 November 1662), also known as ''The Great Audley'', was an English moneylender, lawyer and philosopher. Following his death, he was the feature of a popular 17th-century pamphlet titled ''The way to be ri ...

, and the property passed down to the Harvey and Lovell families until it was sold (together with Rodbourne Rail farm) in 1945. The earliest extant parts of the house date to the mid-sixteenth century but it has been extensively renovated and changed during its history. The house was altered by John Harvey around 1700 and again in 1775–6 for John and Sarah Lovell. It was repaired in 1796 for Peter Lovell and in the modern era had a complete refurbishment in 1981 by William Bertram. It was purchased by the financier

Sir Mark Weinberg Sir Mark Aubrey Weinberg (born 9 August 1931) is a South African-born British financier. He is the Life President of St. James’s Place Wealth Management. Early life and education Weinberg was born in South Africa and educated at King Edw ...

and his wife, the designer

Anouska Hempel Anouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg (born 1941) is a New Zealand-born film and television actress turned hotelier and interior designer. She is sometimes credited as Anoushka Hempel. Early life Hempel is of Russian and Swiss German ancestry and has ...

, in the mid-1980s.Designer Anouska Hempel's Historic Manor in the English Countryside.
Anthony Gardner, ''

Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast, which also publishes internati ...

'', 6 February 2017. Magazine publication April 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2017. The house was recorded as Grade II* listed in 1951.

History

References

Further reading