Milton Hall
Milton Hall near Peterborough, is the largest private house in Cambridgeshire, England. As part of the Soke of Peterborough, it was formerly part of Northamptonshire. It dates from 1594, being the historical home of the Fitzwilliam family, and is situated in an extensive park in which some original oak trees from an earlier Tudor deer park survive. The house is a Grade I listed building; the garden is Grade II*. Homonymous buildings Milton Hall is not to be confused with various other homonymous buildings, including another Milton Hall in Milton, Cambridge, which is a manor house, now used as office accommodation. Sir Clive Sinclair occupied it prior to the current tenant, Pi Innovo. There is also a Milton Hall in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. Milton Hall Primary School, is located in Westcliff-on-Sea, UK. There is also a Milton Hall in Deansgate, Manchester and a Milton Hall in Elsecar, Barnsley. Location The gardens and pleasure grounds of Milton Park are about from Peterborough city centre, off the A47 road, and are about to the south of the house. There are views of the park from both sides of the house. The house and grounds are private and not open to the public; however, Peterborough Milton Golf Club has a par 71 parkland course set in the grounds of the estate, with many of the holes being played in full view of Milton Hall. History In the Middle Ages, Milton was a hamlet in the parish of Castor. The manor of Milton was bought from Robert Wittlebury in 1502 by Sir William Fitzwilliam, a wealthy merchant from an old Yorkshire family. He was knighted in 1515 and died in 1534. The oldest parts of the Hall were built in the 1590s by William's grandson, the third William Fitzwilliam and Lord Deputy of Ireland, who also began to lay out grounds. He was succeeded in 1599 by his son, the fourth William, who continued to work on the Hall and possibly developed the landscape. On his death in 1618, he was succeeded by his son, later the first Baron Fitzwilliam, whose granddaughter Jane married Sir Christopher Wren. A plan dated 1643 records the grounds at this time enclosed by a moat and containing courtyards, fishponds, orchards, and gardens. The third Baron was elevated to Viscount Milton and Earl Fitzwilliam, and it was he who added the imposing stables in about 1690, choosing William Talman and John Sturges as his architects. John Fitzwilliam, the second Earl, succeeded in 1719 and the following year completed an extension to the stable block and continued the work his father had started on enlarging the park and altering the gardens to the south of the Hall to include the walled enclosures which still survive. John's son William, the third Earl, married Lady Anne Wentworth, daughter of the first Marquess of Rockingham. In 1750, after abortive projects commissioned by his grandfather and father from Talman, Gibbs, and Brettingham for modernising the Hall, the third Earl engaged Lord Rockingham's architect