Flitwick Manor

---

title: "Flitwick Manor" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["flitwick", "houses-completed-in-1816", "hotels-in-bedfordshire", "country-houses-in-bedfordshire", "grade-ii*-listed-buildings-in-bedfordshire", "georgian-architecture-in-england", "manor-houses-in-england", "1816-establishments-in-england", "grade-ii*-listed-houses", "country-house-hotels", "reportedly-haunted-locations-in-the-east-of-england"] description: "Listed house in Bedfordshire, England" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flitwick_Manor" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Listed house in Bedfordshire, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox building"]

Field	Value
name	Flitwick Manor
image	Flitwick Manor (geograph 4545900).jpg
caption	Flitwick Manor in 2015
map_type	Bedfordshire
coordinates
location	Flitwick, Bedfordshire, England
years_built	18th century, with earlier origins and later additions
architectural_style	{{Plainlist
client	Edward Blofield
owner	Flitwick Town Council
embed	yes
designation1	Grade II*
designation1_offname	Flitwick Manor
designation1_date	22 October 1952
designation1_number
designation2	Grade II listed building
designation2_offname	Grotto 50m west of Flitwick Manor
designation2_date	23 January 1961
designation2_number
designation3	Historic garden
designation3_offname	Flitwick Manor park and garden
designation3_date	1 July 1989
designation3_number
::

| name = Flitwick Manor | image = Flitwick Manor (geograph 4545900).jpg | caption = Flitwick Manor in 2015 | map_type = Bedfordshire | coordinates = | location = Flitwick, Bedfordshire, England | years_built = 18th century, with earlier origins and later additions | architect = | architectural_style = {{Plainlist|

• Georgian
• Gothic Revival, garden frontage | client = Edward Blofield | owner = Flitwick Town Council | embedded = | embed = yes | designation1 = Grade II* | designation1_offname = Flitwick Manor | designation1_date = 22 October 1952 | designation1_number = | designation2 = Grade II listed building | designation2_offname = Grotto 50m west of Flitwick Manor | designation2_date = 23 January 1961 | designation2_number = | designation3 = Historic garden | designation3_offname = Flitwick Manor park and garden | designation3_date = 1 July 1989 | designation3_number =

Flitwick Manor is a Georgian country house in the south of Flitwick, Bedfordshire, England. It is located on Church Road off the A5120. Now operating as a hotel, the manor is a Grade II* listed building. It is owned by Flitwick Town Council and much of the Grade II listed park is accessible to the public.

History

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Flitwick_Manor_and_Church_1776.jpg" caption="Flitwick Manor and Church 1776"] ::

Edward Blofield built Flitwick Manor in 1632. He died in 1663 and left the property to his wife Jane. In 1668 she married Samuel Rhodes and the property passed through the Rhodes family until it was bequeathed in 1736 by Benjamin Rhodes to Humphry Dell who was a relative. Humphry Dell (1706–1764) was a physician who practised in Flitwick. He was a friend of Jeffrey Fisher and acted as godfather to his daughter Anne who was born in 1757. When Dell died in 1764 he left Flitwick Manor to Anne Fisher, his goddaughter, but as she was only seven years old her father Jeffrey Fisher was the proprietor until she turned twenty-one. An engraving of Flitwick Manor was made during this time in 1776. Anne married James Hesse of Edmonton in 1778 but he died in 1783 and in 1789 she married George Brooks (1741–1817). The manor then came into the possession of the Brooks family where it remained for the next 145 years.

Brooks family

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Croquet_at_Flitwick_Manor_1870.jpg" caption="Playing croquet at Flitwick Manor in about 1870"] ::

George Brooks was a barrister and banker in London. After he married Anne he continued to live there and let Flitwick Manor to tenants. Robert Trevor was a very significant tenant as it was he who instigated the significant changes to the manor between 1793 and 1808. He agreed with George Brooks to pay half of the costs. In 1816 George's son John Thomas Brooks (1794–1858) was given Flitwick Manor on his marriage to Mary Hatfield. The couple lived there for the rest of their lives, and made extensive improvements. The grounds were praised by the landscape architect John Claudius Loudon in the 1820s and 1830s, especially the arboretum, planted in a "natural arrangement".

John Thomas Brooks wrote several diaries which give a picture of life at Flitwick Manor. The most important event in these diaries seems to be the death of his only daughter, Mary Ann Brooks (1822–1848), who died aged 26, in 1848. He was particularly fond of his garden and made major improvements to the grounds. When he died in 1858, his eldest son John Hatfield Brooks (1824–1907) inherited the manor.

Major John Hatfield Brooks was educated in Rugby, Warwickshire and later became an officer in the 1st Bengal Light Cavalry. He served over in British India. It was in Calcutta that he married Sophia Margaret Cloete in 1850. The couple had two daughters. When John died in 1907, his eldest daughter Catherine Mary Frances Brooks (1853–1934) inherited the house. Catherine did not marry and lived in the house until she died at the age of 81 in 1934. Her obituary outlined her work in the village of Flitwick and praised her generosity. When she died she had no heirs so she left the property to her cousin Robert Adolphus Lyall (1876–1948). When he died in 1948 it was left to John Comyn Lyall. He advertised it for sale in 1953.

Later history

After being advertised for sale, Flitwick Manor was bought by Anthony Gilkison, a film director, who lived there until the early 1970s, when it was purchased by the Saxby family. The manor stayed in private hands until 1984, when it was converted to a restaurant. This was sold in 1990 and the manor is now a hotel, operated by Best Western. In 2009 the main park, including the arboretum and two adjoining fields to the south of the property, were acquired by Flitwick Town Council to preserve it for the community. Access to the public is available during daylight hours. Disabled parking is available at the main entrance to the park on the corner of Dunstable Road and Church Road. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Manor_Park_looking_south_(January_2022).jpg" caption="Manor Park looking south (January 2022)"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Manor_Park_-_Sweet_Chestnut_Avenue_and_former_carriage_drive.jpg" caption="Manor Park - Sweet Chestnut Avenue and former carriage drive"] ::

Architecture

The main part of the existing house is the entrance block which dates from the early 18th century. It is two-storeys and is built of red brick. This block encases the earlier 17th-century house and has a mansard roof below a parapet. The architectural style is Georgian, in contrast to the garden frontage which is later and was undertaken in a Gothic Revival style. Charles O'Brien, in his 2014 revised Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough, in the Pevsner Buildings of England, series, identifies earlier work from the late 17th century and later, 19th and 20th century, extensions. Historic England dates the 20th-century work to 1936 and ascribes it to Sir Albert Richardson. Flitwick Manor is a Grade II* listed building. The pleasure gardens surrounding the house were laid out by George and John Thomas Brooks in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They were much admired by contemporaries, including Loudon. Much is now lost under 20th-century housing developments. The park is listed Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.}}

Popular culture

The manor was featured in the episode "The Jim Twins/Flitwick Ghost" of the ITV television series Strange but True? in 1995.

Footnotes

References

Sources

• {{cite book |last1=Adams |first1=Paul |last2=Brazil |first2=Eddie |title=Extreme Hauntings: Britain's Most Terrifying Ghosts |year=2013 |publisher=History Press |isbn=978-0-7524-8956-8
• {{cite book |last=Blaydes | first=Frederick Augustus |title=Genealogia Bedfordiensis: Being a Collection of Evidences relating chiefly to the Land Gentry of Bedfordshire |url=https://archive.org/details/genealogiabedfor00page |year=1890 |location=London |publisher=The Chiswick Press |oclc=865600360
• {{cite book |last1=Loudon |first1=John Claudius |author-link=John Claudius Loudon |title=Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum; or, the trees and shrubs of Britain, native and foreign, hardy and half-hardy, pictorially and botanically delineated, and scientifically and popularly described |date=1838 |location= |publisher= |oclc=270646614
• {{cite book |last1=O'Brien|first1=Charles |last2=Pevsner|first2=Nikolaus |author-link2=Nikolaus Pevsner |title=Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough |series=Buildings of England |year=2014 |orig-date=1968 |location=New Haven, US and London |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-20821-4 |oclc=1276650843
• {{cite book |last1=O'Dell |first1=Damien |title=Paranormal Bedfordshire: True Ghost Stories |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mHuIAwAAQBAJ |date=2008 |location=Stroud |publisher=Amberley |isbn=978-1-445-62992-6
• {{cite book |last1=Puttick |first1=Betty |title=Ghosts of Bedfordshire |date=1996 |publisher=Countryside Books |location=Newbury |isbn=978-1-853-06386-2
• {{cite book |last=Thompson|first=Francis |title=English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aa5lAgAAQBAJ&dq=%22flitwick+manor%22&pg=PA132 |year=2007 |location = New York & London |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-41285-8
• {{cite book |last1=Wiltshire |first1=Kathleen |title=Ghosts and legends of the Wiltshire countryside |date=1973 |publisher=Compton Russell Ltd |location=Salisbury |isbn=978-0-859-55007-9

References

1. {{NHLE
2. "Flitwick Estate of the Brooks family". Bedfordshire Council archive service.
3. "Case studies of some estate gardens in Bedfordshire". Bedfordshire County Archives.
4. Bedfordshire Times and Independent – Friday 26 October 1934, p. 9.
5. Bedfordshire Times and Independent Bedfordshire, England 25 January 1935
6. British Phone Books.{{Better source needed. (January 2022)
7. "Flitwick Manor". Best Western.
8. "Manor Park". Flitwick Town Council.
9. {{NHLE
10. Stamp, Gavin. (18 September 2013). "Rejected riches: Avenue House". Apollo Magazine.
11. A [[grotto]] in the grounds is also listed Grade II.{{efn. The grotto mirrors the mixed architectural styles of the house in that its west frontage is [[Gothic Revival architecture. Gothic]] while the east front is [[Neoclassical architecture

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::