When William Heathcote bought the run-down Hursley Estate from Richard Cromwell's daughters for £35,000 his initial intention had been to retire to the country and live in the Tudor 'Great Lodge'. However, so dilapidated was the Lodge that William decided to completely rebuild. In the place of the Lodge he built the Queen Anne-style Mansion House and around it he adopted new fashions in gardening in his layout of the lawns and grounds. Both House and his landscape still form the core of the estate today.