[ 107 1 



MOYNS PARK 



M 

 IV1 3- 



|OYNS PARK is a fine house of true East Anglian 

 iharacser, lying adjacent to the little town t 

 Meeple Bumstead, sometimes known as Bumstead 

 Turrim, and so named from an ancient tower 

 which once stood in that northern part of the 

 county of Essex, not far from the borders of Cambridge and 

 Suffolk. The house belongs to a large class of mm>i<>ns 

 distinguishing that rtgion, which, as most people know, has 

 added no little to the charms of our domestic architecture. 

 It is a superb creation, fashioned in the familiar brick of that 

 part of tngland. with sweet and graceful gardens about it, and 

 it Mands high among the architectural gems even of a county 

 which possesses, in Layer Marney Tower, an example of old 

 brickwork that has no superior in the land Moyns Park is a 

 brother house to such places as Kentwell and MelforJ. in Essex, 

 and to Helmingham, and a dozen more like houses in the 

 neighbouring shires The East Anglians were manifestly men 

 of substance and discernment in the period in which English 

 houses were being built in large numbers, during that new 

 burst of prosperity which marked the Tudor lirm-v Me. ce it 

 is that to Essex, Suffolk, Cambridge, and Norfolk we look for 

 some of the finest examples of old hn-lish architecture in that 

 style, which, although it well accords with stone construction, 

 was perhaps best expressed in brick. 



I he estate of Moyns takes its somewhat curious name 

 from a family which anciently possessed it. Shortly alter the 

 Conquest, men of the name .it l.e Mo\ ne. r I.e Moign, "the 

 Monk," were settled there, their name sometimes being written 

 Mohun. A certain Robert Fit/Gilbert le Moign, who possessed 

 the estate in the time of Edward II., seems t> have been 

 descended from the original tenant of the 1 )omev! iy survey, 

 and his tarniiy had estates in other places in the \icinity. In 

 the reign ot Henry VII., by the marriage of Joan le .\\o\n \ 

 William Gent, the estate passed \.i the family -it the latter. 

 The dents had been settle, I at Birdhrook and other pi a es in 

 the neighbourhood, and had had an estate at Wimbish as early 

 as n-'X. 



The new possessors became people of consid ration there 

 about, and Thomas ( ient, who was a person of note, learned 

 in the law, and described as the ornament of his family, was 

 the builder of the noble west front of Moyns Park. He was 

 educate.! at Cambridge, and entered at the Middle Temple, 

 being called to the Bar, and he acted as Lent Header there in 

 1571 and 1574. He held the lucrative oltice of steward of all 

 the courts of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. He entered 

 Parliament in 1571 as Member tor Maiden, became a sergeant- 

 .it-law in 1584, and was appointed a Bar >n ot tin- l-.\ hequer in 

 u;S > in whkh year he was knighted by Queen Eli/abeth, who 



THE SOUTH GARDEN. 



