Great Bardfield

Great Bardfield is a large village in Essex, England.

The Great Lodge at Bardfield is a Grade II listed building, which built in the 16th century and was given to Anne of Cleves by Henry VIII as one of several properties as part of a generous settlement for an amicable divorce. The 1,000-acre (4.0 km²) grounds include a Grade I listed barn and a vineyard.^[1] Great Bardfield is home to the Bardfield Cage, a 19th century village lock-up, and the Bardfield Museum. Great Bardfield has a windmill which has been converted to a house.

Great Bardfield played an important role in the history of the Oxlip which, in the UK, is a rare plant only found where Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire meet. Originally it was thought that Oxlips were cowslip-primrose hybrids but in 1842 Henry Doubleday and Charles Darwin conducted tests on plants collected from Great Bardfield and concluded that this was not so. For a while the plant was known as the Bardfield Oxlip. The common cowslip-primrose hybrid is known as the False Oxlip.

Notable people

Bardfield is the home of many important twentieth century English artists who hosted a series of important 'open house' exhibitions in the village during the 1950s. These exhibitions garnered national press attention and attracted thousands of visitors. The Great Bardfield Artists of the 1940s and 1950s were: John Aldridge, Edward Bawden, George Chapman, Stanley Clifford-Smith, Audrey Cruddas, Walter Hoyle, Michael Rothenstein, Eric Ravilious (who lodged with Bawden at Brick House), Sheila Robinson and Marianne Straub. Other artists linked to the art community include Joan Glass, Duffy Ayers, Laurence Scarfe and the political cartoonist David Low. Down the road from Great Bardfield is Little Bardfield.

Another notable son of Great Bardfield is the early 20th century Liberal candidate in several local constituencies, Ernest William Tanner.

Gallery

References

External links

• Great Bardfield Primary School
• Information on Great Bardfield