Weald Country Park

Weald Country Park is a 700-year-old, 500 acre (2 km²) country park in South Weald in the borough of Brentwood in the English county of Essex. It is on the north-east fringe of Greater London. Weald manor, parts of which dated to the 16th century, was bought by Sir Anthony Browne in 1547 and he died at Weald Hall in 1567. In 1685, Erasmus Smith bought it from Sir William Scroggs. The current layout is largely the result of landscaping carried out in the naturalistic manner of Capability Brown for Hugh Smith, lord of the manor from 1732 to 1745. In 1752, the estate was sold to Thomas Tower of Iver in Buckinghamshire, a lawyer and MP for Wareham in Dorset. Christopher Tower succeeded as the owner in 1778 and immediately commissioned Robert Adam to design a new dining room. On his death in 1810, his son, Christopher Thomas Tower, succeeded until 1867; he enlarged the estate and enclosed some commons as "waste". The park is now managed by Essex County Council.