Weald Country Park

Toilets

There is a toilet block within walking distance of the visitor centre and each of the four car parks, including disabled and baby change facilities.

Accessibility

Free use of mobility scooters.

You can borrow one of our 4×4 (four-wheel drive) All-Terrain Tramper mobility scooters for free.

A member of the park team will provide some basic training on how to use the scooter and provide a number for you to quote when booking.

To book training and any future uses of the scooter please call 01277 261343 or come into the visitor centre.

Information on access to our Visitor Centre can be found on AccessAble, formerly Disabled Go.

Park hire for events

We hire areas of the park for private use and events. Please contact us for more information and prices.

country.parks@essex.gov.uk

Explore more about Weald's history in our Discovery Trail here.

Weald originated as a medieval deer park during the 12th century and is likely to have been associated with a manorial centre near St Peter’s Church.

It was the site of a great Tudor mansion from the 16th century and in the early 18th century plans were drawn up by the French landscape designer Bouginion, to improve the hall that was now on the site and its estate. The 1738 plan for the park was formal and geometric but was only partly executed.

From 1750 the estate was held by the Tower family until the Second World War and during the family’s ownership, the final character of the park was established. The house and park were under military occupation between 1943 to 1945 and suffered considerable damage. The hall was then demolished in 1951 following a fire.

In 1953 the park was purchased by Essex County Council to save it as open space for the public, and a programme of replanting the woods lost in the war began. In 1988 the Coxtie Green landfill site was added to the park. The park is a Grade 2 listed historic landscape.

The Essex Record Office reveal the hidden history of Weald Hall

In 1950, Weald Hall became one of the county’s country house casualties of the post-war period. Having been used by the military during World War II and badly damaged by fire, the house was pulled down. Soon afterwards the estate was purchased by Essex County Council and is today Weald Country Park.

Portions of the house dated back to the 16th century, although it had been substantially added to and remodelled over time. From the 11th century until 1540, the manor of South Weald was in the possession of Waltham Abbey. When the abbey was dissolved under Henry VIII, the manor was sold to Sir Brian Tuke. The Tuke family only owned the estate for eight years and in 1548 it was sold to Sir Antony Browne, who is the most likely candidate to have built the core of the 16th century property, about 100 metres northwest of the church.

Browne was a regular at the court of Henry VIII and founder of Brentwood School. He assisted Thomas Cromwell in engineering the downfall of Anne Boleyn and during the reign of Mary Tudor assisted with the persecution of Protestants. He had a busy personal life too; with his wife Alice he had seven sons and three daughters, as well as two illegitimate children and two children, who died in infancy, with his second wife, whom he married when he was about 42 and she was 15.

The estate remained in the Browne family for more than 100 years, but was sold in 1668 to Sir William Scroggs. Scroggs fought for the Royalists during the Civil War, and went on to have a long legal career, including as a lord chief justice. According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, he had ‘a reputation for debauchery, loose living and love of drink’.

Less than 20 years later, in 1685, the property was sold again, this time to a merchant, Erasmus Smith. The Smiths made substantial improvements to the house and grounds, and a map commissioned in 1738 shows a plan of the house surrounded by formal walled gardens and an extensive landscaped park.

The property next changed hands in 1752 when it was purchased by Thomas Tower. His son Christopher purchased more land to extend the park and softened the formal lines of the garden to keep up with 18th century fashions. He also commissioned Robert Adam to make changes to the hall’s interiors.

The estate passed through several generations of the Tower family, the last of whom to own it was Christopher John Hume Tower. Census records provide an interesting snapshot of his life at Weald Hall; in 1901 the family were attended by 15 live-in servants.

CJH Tower was to experience much tragedy in his life. His first wife died in childbirth and their daughter died a month later. He remarried and had two sons, Christopher Cecil and Hugh Christopher, who were both killed during World War I. Christopher was killed in action near Loos in France on October 2, 1915, and Hugh was killed while serving with the Royal Flying Corps in 1916.

Today little trace of the house remains, but visitors can spy remnants of garden buildings and the shape of the 18th century informal landscaping and meet the park’s resident herd of fallow deer.

(Originally published in Essex Life 27 February 2017)

Our Visitor Centre includes a shop and café. It is located close to the main car park.

The Café is open from 10am-3.30pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am-3.45pm at the weekend. Poor weather and exceptions may apply.

The café offers light refreshments such as ice creams, hot and cold drinks, cakes and snacks, as well as paninis and sausage rolls all subject to availability.

We welcome dogs on leads into the café.

Stick Man merchandise, duck and deer food are also available to purchase.