Copford Hall is a manorial seat and

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 ...

country house, with gardens by

Capability Brown Lancelot Brown (born c. 1715–16, baptised 30 August 1716 – 6 February 1783), more commonly known as Capability Brown, was an English gardener and landscape architect, who remains the most famous figure in the history of the English la ...

, in the village of

Copford Copford is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Essex, England, west of Colchester. The hamlet of Copford Green is found a short distance to the south. The poet Matthew Arnold noted he was struck by ''"the deeply rural charac ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England, 46 miles (74 km) from London. The building was at one time owned by the

bishops of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, and its grounds are described in

Pevsner Pevsner or Pevzner is a Jewish surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aihud Pevsner (1925–2018), American physicist * Antoine Pevsner (1886–1962), Russian sculptor, brother of Naum Gabo * David Pevsner, American actor, singer, da ...

as "almost the ''beau idéal'' of what to the foreigner is an English landscape scene". The present house is a large, square red-brick building with stone dressing and ornamentation, the façade the result of alterations in the early 1800s. However, the majority of the structure dates back to 1720, and parts of the inside to the early 1600s. The extensive grounds include canals, fishponds and water features. On the lowest pool is a classical boathouse. Part of the possessions of the bishopric

See of London The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of England's Province of Canterbury in England. It lies directly north of the Thames. For centuries the diocese covered a vast tract and bordered the dioceses of Norwich and Lincoln to the north ...

before the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

, it came into the possession of the Crown and was sold by

King James I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

to the Mountjoy family. It was purchased from them by John Haynes in 1626, who later went to North America where he served as governor of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

and then as the first governor of the

Connecticut Colony The ''Connecticut Colony'' or ''Colony of Connecticut'', originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which later became Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settl ...

. His son, Cromwell's Major General

Hezekiah Haynes Hezekiah Haynes (died 1693) supported the parliamentary cause during the English Civil War rising to the rank of major. During the Interregnum, under the patronage of his war time commander General Charles Fleetwood, he held a number of administr ...

, took it over in 1657. It passed to a cousin by marriage, Major John Haynes Harrison of the Essex Militia, who married the heiress daughter of Reverend John Fiske and his wife Sarah in 1783.Ffiske, Henry
Fiske Family Papers
. Fletcher Publishing, Norwich, England, 1902. Their children included

Fiske Goodeve Fiske-Harrison Fiske Goodeve Fiske-Harrison (2 September 1793 – 1872) of Copford Hall, Lord of the Manor of Copford was High Sheriff of Essex. He was born Fyske Goodeve Harrison on 2 September 1793 at Copford Hall, Essex, to John Haynes Harrison. John Hayne ...

. It was later owned by his descendant A. B. C. Harrison,

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

of Copford, former High Sheriff and Deputy

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ...

of Essex and, former MP for

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the River Blackwater, Essex, Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea ...

in Essex.

References

{{coord, 51.8697, 0.8089, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Country houses in Essex Grade II listed buildings in Essex Borough of Colchester