<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>1808 </p><p>The Cutts estate was acquired by Sir John Cutts (or Cutt) (d. 1521), under-treasurer and counsellor to Henry VII. He presumably built the first Tudor house to replace the old manor house that had stood in a moat nearby, but he and his son and grandson mostly lived in the family home at Horham Hall, Essex, and the first three heirs were minors for most of the period up to 1670. It was therefore not until the great grandson, the 4th Sir John Cutts, came of age and sold Horham Hall, making Childerley his principal residence in the 1570s, that a finer house was needed. The upgraded house, retaining parts of the original early Tudor building, was large and grand, with 50 rooms including a study and closet for his curiosities, for this Sir John was a cultured man with an interest in history. Of that house and the earlier one there survives only part of the S wing towards the garden, two-storeyed with dormers and walls of ancient red brick. Its ground floor contains two rooms, each with massive rebuilt chimneys projecting externally. On the E side is an original square staircase. The 4th Sir John’s second wife, Margaret Brockett, had brought money to the family which enabled much of this aggrandisement, and the painted room (<b>128</b>) includes her arms. He died 1615. The 5th Sir John continued to improve and enjoy the Hall, depopulated Great Childerley in order to extend the deer park and further improved the Hall. He was a politician who sat as MP for Cambs between 1604 and 1640, a hospitable host, and John Layer was impressed by the rabbits bred in the Park ‘<i>large and exceeding fatt and wel relished’</i> which were sent to London markets twice a week. Sir John died 1645 and his second wife, Anne Weld, ran the estate until 1655 in their son’s minority. His son, the 6th Sir John, was created a baronet 1661 and died unmarried1670, leaving the heavily mortgaged estate to distant cousins. The contents were sold, the Hall let to tenants and ‘it ceased to be a gentleman's residence’. In 1686 the last (Lord) John Cutts sold the estate to Felix Calvert, a local businessman who held the mortgage on it. When Cole visited the chapel (<b>126</b>) in 1748 he was unable to see inside the Hall because it had two tenants, and much of the house was demolished. The Calvert family held it until they too were bankrupt in 1860, and it was in this intermediate phase, while occupied by successive tenants, that Relhan recorded it. The last Calvert, General Felix Calvert, had aspirations for the Hall and in the 1850s rebuilt it much as we see it today, reviving the Tudor idiom and making it the centre of lively and sociable family life. Unfortunately this work seems to have bankrupted him too, and in 1860 he sold the estate to Edward Burtenshaw Sugden, whose grandson also went bankrupt. Eventually it was bought by JG Jenkins in 1957. It is now properly maintained as a family home and centre of a farming estate and also as a wedding venue, retreat centre etc. This is one of the few drawings which Relhan has labelled with a precise date and location, in this case ‘<i>RR Del Dec</i>r<i> 4 1808 CHILDERLEY HOUSE</i>’.</p><p>Palmer 1935; RCHME 1968; VCH 1989</p></p>
