Audley End Stately Home, Cambridge

A junction or two down the M11 towards London stands a rather impressive stately home that was originally bought by Charles II from the Suffolk family.

It was certainly useful for the horse racing at nearby Newmarket, but the Mortgage payments built up so much (seems rather odd that a King had to have a mortgage like the rest of us plebs) that William III only 40 or so years later simply handed the keys back to the local gentry - the Suffolks. His mate Christopher Wren had also pointed out that the D.I.Y on the place to bring it kicking and screaming into the late 17th century would cost him an arm and a leg - even if he went to Wickes for the materials.

The range of rooms is this Jacobean pile is quite impressive, although I always find the 'under stairs' sections of such places where the servants lived and worked somehow more interesting.

Great gardens too - by Capability Brown no less.