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Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Award
We have just been awarded a second Quality Award for our learning programmes by the Council for Learning outside the Classroom. Contact our education officer  to organise a fun visit to...

The Stansted maze re-opens soon
The Stansted Maze re-opens on Saturday 11th February for half-term, then opens weekends and Wednesdays 1pm-4pm until the next school holidays (Easter) when it opens every day.

Stansted Park on the BBC
In November we welcomed BBC's Bargain Hunt with Tim Wonnacott to film at Stansted Park. The resulting films will be broadcast on BBC1 at 12.15-1pm on February 10th, 20th, March 2nd & 7th.



Watch the Stansted Park Video...

 

Filming at Stansted Park

For  information about Stansted Park as an accessible and authentic  period film location, please contact us. See more location images at www.localityonline.com ref.1279-84. 

View ARTSED's Becoming Jane shot at Stansted Park on Youtube

                 

 



A brief history of Stansted Park



 "The best 'Below Stairs' in the country!"


Stansted Park began as a hunting lodge 800 years ago.  Royal visitors are recorded from Henry II to the present generation. After several owners,  and a calamitous fire in 1900, the mansion was rebuilt in 1901 on the exact footprint of the 1688 house, and became the family home of the Ponsonbys, Earls of Bessborough, in 1924. 

“A House seeming to be a Retreat” Daniel Defoe, 1724

The elegant Regency Chapel of St Paul has a complex history. It stands on the site of the first great Stansted House (ruined in the Civil War) and re-uses some of its 15th century masonry. Its stained glass windows 'tripple-arch'd and diamonded' directly inspired the poet John Keats.

The chapel's unique East Window and ancient locks have just been restored with support of the Friends of Stansted Park and the Leche Trust.

A fine collection of paintings, textiles and furniture in the state rooms illustrates the history of the family, presented as if the Earl was still at home.  The fully furnished Servants’ Quarters ’Downstairs’ survive from 1901. 

“Probably the best and most informative country house that I have visited in 50 years”

 



"..Its romance is irresistible" Aslet  

 

The house was enjoyed by the families of the 9th and 10th Earls of Bessborough as their family home, and still contains family portraits by Kauffman, Lawrence, Hoppner, Reynolds, and Liotard. The 9th Earl of Bessborough, Vere Ponsonby, was a popular Governor General of Canada in the 1930s.
 
Since 1983 the House and Estate have been administered by Stansted Park Foundation, an independent charitable trust set up by Frederick [Eric] Ponsonby, the 10th Earl. He was a diplomat, Minister of State, a founder of Chichester Festival Theatre, and a Vice-President of the European Parliament.

Stansted Park is now a popular venue for events, weddings, and exclusive corporate use. The Drawing Room was recently refurbished by Nicky Haslam Design. 

The award-winning House and Grounds are now a popular tourist attraction, a valuable educational resource, sustainably managed for conservation and used by schools, students and families all year round.


"The effect, from every point of view, is strikingly magnificent" Dallaway, 1792