Braxted Park is a large Queen Anne style country house set in around 500 acres of parkland, near Witham, Essex, surrounded by a long brick wall and including lakes, a parish church, and various estate buildings. Today it operates as a private estate and a high‑end venue for weddings and events, with a dedicated wedding business trading as Braxted Park Weddings.
 
The estate appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as belonging to the amazingly named Eudo Dapifer, a Norman official of William the Conqueror.
The current house began as Braxted Lodge, built around 1680–1682 for Thomas Darcy, then substantially rebuilt in the mid‑18th century for the wealthy cloth merchant Peter Du Cane by architect Sir Robert Taylor.
The Du Cane family expanded and remodelled the house and landscape through the 18th and 19th centuries, adding ponds, the walled garden and restoring the estate church of All Saints, which dates back to about 1115.
The big ornamental lake south and west of the house is not natural: Peter Du Cane II merged a chain of four medieval fishponds into one sweeping body of water in the early 19th century to create grand views and boating opportunities.
 
interesting facts...
The lakeside Hermitage, once mislabelled the “Ice House,” is described by garden historians as one of the most enigmatic parkland buildings in England, with no clear agreed original purpose.