Audley End Masterplan

Audley End is a Grade I listed Historic Park and Garden located in Saffron Walden, 40 miles north of London. The landscape was originally designed by Capability Brown and provides a setting for the earlier Grade I Jacobean mansion. Audley End is English Heritage’s fifth most visited site nationally and its most visited in the East of England. Arkwood were commissioned by English Heritage to create a landscape masterplan as part of a larger development plan for the site. As part of the study, we also prepared a Natural Capital Account to assess the value of ecosystem services that the estate provides.

Client and Contract Period

English Heritage

2022 – 2023

Project Objectives

The Audley End project is one component in English Heritage’s investment plan for its principal attractions. The project was devised around the development of a new updated masterplan for the site developed by Britton McGrath. The brief for the masterplan was to ensure that Audley End was equipped to address the impacts of significantly higher levels of visitation, to enhance the visitor experience and to maximise the site’s potential to generate revenue. The landscape masterplan focused on the quality of the visitor arrival, including new facilities for car parking (including the removal of parking from sensitive areas of the listed landscape). The plan also considered ticketing and arrival circulation, retail and catering, play provision and site-wide visitor circulation (to reduce visitor pressure on the heart of the site).

Issues, Challenges, and Outcomes

As Audley End and its gardens are both Grade I heritage assets, it was essential to safeguard the integrity of the assets, while enhancing the visitor experience. It was also essential that the many teams within EH with responsibility for the site were widely consulted so that their understanding of the site, its significance and functioning were fully incorporated into the evolving masterplan. The study also required us to develop pragmatic and affordable proposals for a major investment into the site.

Services