Henham Park
park in Wangford with Henham, East Suffolk, Suffolk, England, UK
Henham Park is an historic 4,200 acres (1,700 ha) estate in the parish of Wangford with Henham, situated north of the village of Blythburgh in the English county of Suffolk. The park is bordered to the east by the A12 road and to the west by the A145, the two roads meeting to the south of the estate.. It was historically the seat of the Earl of Stradbroke. In 1953 the 4th Earl demolished the Georgian manor house, known as Henham Hall.
The estate's current owner is Keith Rous, 6th Earl of Stradbroke (b. 1937), formerly of Mount Fyan's Station, Dundonnell, Victoria, Australia, a 5,900 hectare (14,580 acre) ranch which he purchased in 1989 and sold in 2016 for $ Aus 34 million (£19 million). In 2006 a major £60 million redevelopment plan was announced by Hektor Rous, the estate manager and a younger son of the 6th Earl, including the building of a large hotel. The park is the venue for the Latitude Festival of arts and music and plays host to other events throughout the year.
History
Hunting park
The original Henham lands were hunting grounds in the historic civil parish of Henham, the seat of the de la Poles Earls of Suffolk, of Wingfield Castle in Suffolk, on which a timber-framed structure was built with its own protective moat.
However in 1513 King Henry VIII ordered the execution of Edmund de la Pole, and granted the property to his friend Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, who built a new mansion house 200 yards (180 m) in front of the old mediaeval timber-framed structure, in fine Tudor style.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Henham Park” is park in Wangford with Henham, East Suffolk, Suffolk, England, UK. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Henham, Park and park, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “park in Wangford with Henham, East Suffolk, Suffolk, England, UK” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5714379. Authority coordinates are 52.339, 1.598. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1937, 1989 and 2016.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Henham Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Henham Park primary sources, Henham Park archive and Henham research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Henham Park”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Henham Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.