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Friends of Audley End is a membership organisation to support the work of English Heritage in the conservation, preservation and maintenance of Audley End House.

 

Audley End House, on the outskirts of Saffron Walden in Essex, was originally built in 1605 by Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk. It has seen many changes over the centuries, but took on its present shape in 1784-6. 

 

In 1762 Capability Brown was commissioned to landscape the parkland and Robert Adam designed new reception rooms on the ground floor of the house in the style of the 18th Century with a formal grandeur.

 

The house was requisitioned in 1941 and eventually handed over to the Special Operations Executive. It was used as a general holding camp and latterly for its Polish branch who were trained here before being parachuted into occupied Poland.

 

The house was sold to the Ministry of Works, the predecessor to English Heritage, in 1948 by the ninth Lord Braybrooke.