Grade II Listed · Completed 1907
Once welcoming King Edward VII as a guest, Lanwades Hall stands as an unforgettable setting. Approach through mirrored gatehouses and striking wrought-iron gates, then follow a magnificent half-mile tree-lined driveway to discover the elegance and charm that await.
Lanwades Hall is a historic Edwardian Grade II Listed manor house completed in 1907, commissioned by James Larnach, an Australian banker who already owned the Lanwades Stud on this ground. Its design was inspired by Horham Hall in Essex, a Tudor manor house Larnach admired for its near-identical facade. The identity of Lanwades' own architect has never been confirmed — local tradition sometimes credits the Gothic Revival architect J. C. Buckler, though Buckler died in 1894, over a decade before Lanwades was built, so this can only ever have been a story rather than a fact.
The house exists because of a horse. In the 1898 Derby, Larnach entered his own colt, Jeddah, ridden by Otto Madden, and backed him with a £500 bet to win. Jeddah made racing history as the first Derby winner at triple-figure odds — 100 to 1 — and the £5,450 in winnings funded the construction of Lanwades Hall and its estate. One of Larnach's estate workers is said to have placed his own £1 bet on Jeddah too: more than a month's wages at the time, and by all accounts a life-changing win. Jeddah was buried in his favourite spot on the estate when he died in 1909, and his photograph still hangs in the entrance hall, above the front door, today.
King Edward VII stayed at Lanwades Hall as a guest of James Larnach whenever he attended the Newmarket races nearby — a royal connection the house has kept ever since. It's said that a young Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen, visited too, drawn by a friendship with another girl from the village.
Larnach died in 1915, and the First World War delayed the sale of his estate until 1919, when it was auctioned as a single lot: the Hall and its gardens, the Lanwades Stud and racing stables, the Meddler Stud to the east, and Lanwades Home Farm — 'a celebrated racing establishment', as the sale particulars described it, with 'charming grounds, park and well-sheltered paddocks'. Larnach's daughter, Isabel, who went on to marry the 4th Marquess of Abergavenny, oversaw the sale. Mariota, the Dowager Countess of Wilton, is believed to have been the buyer.
Ownership changed hands several times over the next decade — there's even anecdotal evidence that Caroline, Duchess of Montrose, a celebrated racing patron who also built St Agnes' Church in Newmarket, held the estate for a time. By the early 1920s it belonged to Herbert Sidebottom, another passionate racehorse breeder whose son Hughie was a keen polo player; a polo pitch was laid out on the estate, drawing teams from across England. In 1931, Sidebottom built a separate house, Lanwades House, halfway between Moulton and Kentford.
The Lanwades Stud itself moved in 1928 to what's now the Lanwades Training Establishment, while the Hall and its immediate grounds continued to change hands — passing in 1929 to Major Durham Matthews, who renamed it Lanwades Park and later became a steward of the Jockey Club.
In early 1939 the estate was divided again, with the stud bought by Lt-Col N. E. 'Nat' Frieze — only for it to be requisitioned by the Army later that same year. Throughout the Second World War, Lanwades served as a training and transit camp for officers and troops, with a REME workshop set up near the racing stables and Italian prisoners of war billeted on the estate. The land, ploughed up for wartime agriculture, was returned to Colonel Frieze and re-seeded as stud land in 1946.
Meanwhile, Lanwades Park and the main house remained with Major Durham Matthews. In September 1945 he sold the house's complete contents, and in 1947, in memory of his son who had been killed in an accident, he gave the house and its roughly 140-acre estate to the newly formed Animal Health Trust.
The Hall became the Trust's headquarters, serving over the years as a museum, library and offices, and Princess Anne — patron of the Trust — visited every year. The Trust remained at Lanwades Hall until 2016, when it was bought by its current owners, Alex and Elvis, who have restored it as a full-time wedding and events venue, and their family home. We're proud to share the warmth of Lanwades Hall with many more guests, for many years to come.
Showrounds run most weeks. Come and see the rooms Edward VII once walked through.