English Heritage, owner of Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, has published a 20-year plan to restore the Grade I-listed site in a bid to increase public visits and enhance the park's longevity.

Conservation work on the site began two years ago when English Heritage took over ownership, it has currently spent £2m with the help of a grant by the Wolfson Foundation.

Over the next two decades the charity plans to restore and reopen the Countess' Sitting Room and the conservatory originally designed by Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, and repair the lakes created by landscape designer Lancelot "Capability" Brown.

Other eighteen century designers which contributed to the site include Thomas Archer, William Kent and Batty Langley. The garden's design was inspired by the gardens of Versailles in France and still reflect the formal early 18th century layout of wooded walks and canals.

The restoration will also include the reinstating the Duchess' Column and the Duke's Obelisk, which were sold and moved to Trent Park in Middlesex in 1934. The replanting of the Italian gardens and the restoration of the 1856 'Petit Trianon' swiss cottage, built by the Earl de Grey along with Wrest Park House.

There will be new visitor facilities, including improved and wider public access to the house and walled gardens as well as enhancements to the paths, walkways and avenues around the estate.

Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, said: "Wrest Park and its collection of historic garden buildings is one of the finest eighteenth century landscapes in Britain. It is also one of our best kept historic secrets. Wrest Park is now being restored, reversing years of neglect and placing this once famous landscape back into the limelight."