Hardwick House, Suffolk

[1] Sir Thomas Gery Cullum (1741–1831), a Charterhouse graduate, medical doctor and member of the Royal Academy and the Linnean Society, was a well-regarded author on science and botany.

[2] Hardwick House was built on what were formerly the medieval grazing lands of St Edmundsbury Abbey, which were sold during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Eventually the properties fell to Sir Robert Drury of nearby Hawstead Place, a former moated manor now demolished.

The only standing remains of Hawstead are the brick gate pillars at the entrance to the manor and some other brickwork and the moat: however the painted emblematic panels of the last Lady Drury's private oratory or chamber of meditation were transferred to Hardwick,[3] and are now kept at Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich.

[7] The House was embroidered over the centuries by the Cullums who added gables, towers, ornate cut flint Tolkiensian cottage confections, gazebos, fountains, statuary and planting.

[12] The Hardwick Estate eventually came to embrace a small village of properties, including adjoining farms and cottages built by the Cullum baronets on the initial holding.

[13] Hardwick became so elaborate that it came to include a Venetian indoor riding school, also being the centre of a busy social scene, with fox hunting parties often gathering on the Cullum estate.