Wimpole Estate
A National Trust estate south-west of Cambridge, with a hall begun in 1640, landscaped parkland and an 18th-century model farm.
The hall and its owners
Wimpole Hall stands at the centre of an estate of 3,000 acres of parkland and farmland owned by the National Trust. The estate appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, and the present house was begun in 1640. In 1740 Edward Harley sold it to Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, who had Henry Flitcroft remodel the front. Other architects who worked on the hall include James Gibbs and John Soane. The last private owner, Elsie Bambridge, a daughter of Rudyard Kipling, left the estate to the National Trust at her death in 1976, and it opened to the public in 1979. The hall is Grade I listed, and the estate is Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Parkland and farm
Designers who shaped the grounds include Charles Bridgeman, "Capability" Brown in 1767 and Humphry Repton in the early 1800s. Bridgeman's avenue runs for two and a half miles from the south front, and was replanted after Dutch elm disease killed the elms. A neo-Gothic tower known as Wimpole's Folly, dated 1768, stands in the North Park. Home Farm, a model farm built to John Soane's designs in 1794, is approved by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.
Practical notes
The National Trust gives the address as Arrington, 8 miles south-west of Cambridge on the A603. On 12 October 2026 its page listed the hall as open from 12:00 to 16:30 with last entry at 15:30, the garden from 09:30 to 17:00 and the parkland from 09:30 to 18:00. A Whole Estate adult ticket was £21.00, or £23.10 with Gift Aid, and members enter free. The same page names Shepreth, 5 miles away, as the nearest station and says the number 75 bus from Cambridge stops at Arrington, 1 mile from Wimpole, or at Orwell, 2 miles away. Check opening times and bus timetables before travelling. A 5k parkrun starts in front of the Hall every Saturday at 9:00am, as described in the parkruns guide.