Day 190 - This is Wimpole house on the Wimpole estate which is now owned by the National Heritage. Wimpole has been continuously occupied for at least 2000 years with evidence from Roman, Anglo Saxon and medieval times. It has been owned by many different families who have all altered and added to it to make it unique to them. The earliest maps show a four gabled manor house surrounded by a moat which was demolished and replaced around 1650.
The last owners were Captain and Mrs Elsie Bambridge (Rudyard Kiplings daughter) who purchased the house in 1942 but is was largely empty so they spent a lot of time searching for and buying pictures and furniture to fill the house, they used the royalties from her father's books to finance this. Captain Bambridge died in 1943 and Mrs Bambridge lived on in the house until her death at the age of 80 in 1976 when the estate passed over to the National Trust.
