On a midsummer afternoon, sunshine pours through the high, glazed roof of the winter garden at Sennowe Park in Norfolk. The air is hothouse heady with exotic plants trailing from pots; a fountain plays in the marble gazebo. All that is missing from this quintessentially Edwardian scene are the house-party guests – men in panama hats and stiff collars; the women, elegantly pearl-strung and satin-sash-waisted.
It was the Prince of Wales who put East Anglia on the social map after Queen Victoria bought Sandringham for him as a 21st birthday present in 1862. Where Edward VII led, well-heeled others followed. Norfolk is dotted with grandiose Edwardian properties designed for sport and entertaining. But it is Sennowe, an ebullient mix of Continental and English architecture, that best expresses the fabled confidence of the early 1900s.
This is what its owner, Thomas Albert Cook, intended. He was a very different character from his grandfather and namesake, the travel agent Thomas Cook. Apprenticed to a cabinet-maker who drank heavily, the latter was a natural teetotaller. It was through his membership of the temperance movement that the travel business began with an era-defining excursion. In 1841, Cook hired a train to take 570 people from Leicester to attend an anti-alcohol meeting in Loughborough. After that, he looked further afield to Europe and Egypt, where ‘Cookites’ sailed down the Nile in comfort. By the end of the century, when Cook (the grandson) sold his shares in the business to buy Sennowe, the invention of traveller’s cheques had made it an even more lucrative concern.
Cook’s brothers, Frank and Ernest, inherited the business. ‘Unlike them, Thomas – known as Bert – was a bon viveur. He raced boats on the Broads; his hobby was carriage driving. He liked to play.’ So says Sennowe’s current incumbent, Charlie Temple-Richards, a sixth generation Cook, who took over the house with his wife, Virginia, in 2003.
In local architect George Skipper, Cook met a kindred spirit. After winning a competition for the town hall in Cromer, Skipper rarely worked outside Norfolk again. ‘As John Betjeman put it, Skipper was to Norwich what Gaudí was to Barcelona,’ says Charlie. His masterwork was the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society’s offices, where he persuaded his clients to line the interior in marble originally designated for Westminster Cathedral for an extra cost of £5,000. He approached Sennowe in the same spirit of largesse.
The façade is evidence of this. The voluptuous bay would not look out of place on a Central European manor house; the elaborate panels were carved by Italian masons. The oeil-de-boeuf windows are a reference to Hampton Court, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The semi-clad sculptures Morning and Evening, at either end of the portico, were made by Henry C. Fehr on the Fulham Road.
Skipper’s skill lay in the way he made use of the existing architecture. The building to the left of the bay is part of the original 18th-century house, to which he added the porte-cochère. Hopper heads (for rainwater) show that Sennowe was finished in 1907, as the storm clouds of taxation gathered. After Lloyd George’s People’s Budget of 1909 it would have been almost impossible to build a house like this.
Skipper’s eclecticism spills into the house: a fusion of Neoclassical, Art Nouveau and Jacobean influences. The drawing room – fit for a Sargent sitter – has a Neo-Adam ceiling and walls lined in silk that has mellowed from green to yellow. In the library, Skipper looked to the early Renaissance for the plasterwork ceiling and carved wooden door. Set at an angle, it was modelled on the Whispering Door at Broughton Castle. This room faced south, not ideal for conserving books, suggesting that Cook’s interests lay elsewhere. The staircase, with its carved balusters, was modelled on the 17th-century one at Cassiobury House, seat of the earls of Essex, attributed to Edward Pearce.
In the age of the house party, bedrooms were designed to feel as comfortable as a hotel: four-posters and en suite bathrooms still replete with ashtrays. An early wet room was lined in alabaster, as Charlie discovered when he attempted to hang a painting on the wall, now covered in wallpaper. Much of the furniture in the house was bought on a spree at Maple & Co in London, the source of the hunting frieze – bought by the imperial yard – that is wrapped around by the hallway.
The winter garden, on the north front, has survived intact. According to Charlie, Cook’s first question when he returned following a world tour was: ‘Where is my ballroom?’ There wasn’t one, so this space was made large enough for dances.
Any discussion of Edwardian houses inevitably includes domestic technology. Skipper’s design incorporated the latest developments: electric lighting, heated towel rails, a built-in vacuum-cleaning system and telephones. Hot water was supplied by a vast, erratic boiler. Behind this lay a considerable workforce: Cook had a domestic staff of 60, and no fewer than 12 full-time gardeners.
Charlie and Virginia, whose three children grew up here, see themselves as custodians. ‘It’s a balance; conserving the past and making it comfortable.’ Virginia has presided over the changes, adding bathrooms and the bright kitchen where the servants’ hall was. Yet nothing feels too new. ‘This is a powerful building – you have to go with its grain,’ says Charlie.
The presence of the Cooks is inescapable too. The library has a portrait of TA Cook bowling past a newly built Sennowe in his carriage, with his wife beside him and his only son and footmen behind. Beyond the house looms the Italianate belltower, built to disguise a water tank.
Maintaining Cook’s largesse comes at a price, but its current owners have found creative ways to fund its upkeep. Architectural tours, weddings and festivals on smooth lawns have replaced house parties, and paying guests can stay in the romantic boathouse overlooking the lake. As Charlie puts it: ‘This house was built for fun.’ And thus it remains.
Sennowe Park, Guist, Norfolk NR20 5PB, is not open for visits, but can be booked for events, stays and functions. For details, visit sennowepark.com
A version of this article also appears in the May 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive interiors stories like this one, direct to your inbox.
