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Gamlingay

History of house and gardens at Gamlingay

Park and garden

The house and gardens at Gamlingay had a very short life. The estate of Shackledon was acquired by the first Sir George Downing in c 1677 from Sir Roger Burgoyne, whose family lived in the old grange, around which they had made an inclosed park by 1601 (VCH). Between 1712 and 1713 his grandson, Sir George Downing III, built a new house known as Gamlingay Park, and surrounded it with an ornamental garden. Following his death, Sir George’s estate was divided amongst four cousins and their issue. If they had no issue their share was to be used for the foundation of a new college in Cambridge. Prolonged litigation followed the death of the last surviving legatee, Sir Jacob Garrad Downing, in 1764, and Downing College, Cambridge did not finally acquire the property until 1800. The house had been abandoned and demolished in 1776. Thereafter the land was covered with grass, the remnants of the gardens surviving only as earthworks. The college sold the site in 1945 and it remains (2000) in single private ownership. (Historic England)

https://www.parksandgardens.org/places/gamlingay-park

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