At the heart of one of the first Italian gardens created in England, Ickworth House is made up of a rotunda crowned by a ribbon of friezes inspired by illustrations of Homer by Flaxman and two wings curving inwards. The residence was built 1795-1829 by the fabulously rich Bishop of Derry, Frederick Hervey, fourth count of Bristol, an Irish nationalist and eccentric traveller after whom all the Bristol hotels in Europe are named.