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Listener Sarah Openshaw wrote to invite Richard Uridge to the 2000-acre Thornham Estate in Suffolk to see "how a country estate has diversified to fit into the 21st century".

Thornham Hall was a perfect Tudor red brick moated hall with a classic straight and gated drive through the Park. It was expanded with a gracious Georgian façade and, by the 19th century, it boasted 120 rooms and 27 gardeners who tended 25 acres of formal gardens.
Royal visitors were frequently entertained and the shooting parties and country house weekends at Thornham were splendid occasions. The agricultural decline which followed the failure of the potato harvest in the 1890s and the repeal of the Corn Laws led to two-thirds of the old hall being pulled down at the turn of the 20th century. The final third burned down in the late 1940s and there is now a modern 20th century hall on the original site.

The present Lord Henniker retired to the estate about 25 years ago, after a long career in the diplomatic service which took him all over the world. He was ahead of his time in deciding that he would share his good fortune and open up his lands to the general public and finding ways to try to help rectify the problems of rural isolation, poverty and unemployment. He is passionately keen that people are encouraged to enjoy the country as he has and to learn about it.

In the walled garden, for example, the pre-Victorian glasshouses have been renovated and the garden has been planned as a walled orchard by Professor Peter Thoday, who also worked on the lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project. People with special needs work in the garden itself and have transformed it after years of neglect to an area specialising in growing and caring for fruit trees. They've also managed to save the ancient Lady Henniker apple from extinction. Elsewhere, redundant farm buildings have been converted into workshops for small businesses and the farm is run alongside as a commercial business, but always with conservation in mind.


Archaeologist and landscape historian Mike Hardy shows Richard that the site is unique in having a continuous history of settlement since the first Neolithic farmers arrived. Over the last three years Mike has led an archaeological study of the Thornham Estate and says he's astounded by the archaeological finds. There is evidence of occupation from pre-history to modern times during all archaeological periods. Even during the dark ages, which is rare, as this was when the landscape normally was empty. It was an important religious centre from the days of St Felix and the re-emergence of Christianity throughout East Anglia, and the village of Thornham Parva was crucial to the development of Christianity in East Anglia.