Wetheringsett Manor

Wetheringsett cum Brockford

Parish: WETHERINGSETT CUM BROCKFORD
District Council: MID SUFFOLK
TM 129 669
Not open to the general public

The architect, Tuelon’s 1843 design for Wetheringsett Rectory (later to become The Manor), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844. This shows the drive from the west sweeping in front of the house to the east-facing front elevation with stables and offices to the north (to the right in the image). (RIBA Collections No: RIBA84124, Library Reference SC188/2(9)
The 1885 OS map of Wetheringsett Manor House shows a gently-curving drive from the west through parkland dotted with trees. Pleasure gardens and shelterbelts of trees lay to the north and east of the house. A large rectangular partly-walled kitchen garden with perimeter and cross-paths, glasshouses against the north and east walls and orchards in the west and north slip gardens lay west of the house. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html)

A parish of mainly small hamlets and isolated properties in an agricultural area on the High Suffolk clayland plateau, Wetheringsett cum Brockford combines the larger Wetheringsett with the hamlet of Brockford Green to the south. It is c. 14km (9mls) north-east of Stowmarket and the A140 road running due north to Norwich forms much of its western boundary. A stream flows through Wetheringsett village joining the River Dove to the north. A medieval deer park south of the village centre once existed in the parish, the hamlet of Park Green marked its south-west boundary with Wetheringsett Lodge and its fishpond at its centre. The park is believed to have been disparked in the late-sixteenth century or early-seventeenth century.

The site of Wetheringsett Manor lies on high ground north-east of the Church of All Saints (Grade I). Until the 1840s the land was a ‘virgin’ site in agricultural use. The 1841 tithe apportionment records George Hayward as owning the site, which at the time was named ‘Church Hill’. Through numerous land exchanges in 1843, the Revd Robert Moore (d. 1857), grandson of John Moore (d. 1805) Archbishop of Canterbury, acquired the land as the site for a new rectory to replace the original beside the church, which was once home to Richard Hakluyt the author of The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation and rector in 1590 until his death in 1616. The old rectory is now two properties, Rectory Cottage and The Old Rectory (Grade II).

The Revd Robert employed Samuel Sanders Teulon, renowned architect of the Gothic Revival style, to design his new rectory. The house, now known as Wetheringsett Manor (Grade II) but not associated with the original manor house site, was built c. 1844. It lay surrounded by a small park, with large partly-walled kitchen garden close to the house and small area of pleasure gardens consisting of lawn and winding paths through a mixed plantation of trees. In 1863 it passed to Henry Brooke JP through his marriage to Robert’s daughter, Dulcibella Latitia when it ceased to be the rectory and became a private residence.

Wetheringsett Manor stayed in the Brooke family until 1910 when the estate of 453ha (1,120a) was put up for sale. Totalling 42ha (104a), the house, pleasure gardens and the home farm on the edge of the parkland north-east of the house known as Whitebarn Farm were bought by Harry Tandy Morgan and eventually sold by his widow in 1925. Kelly’s Directories of Suffolk lists Bertram Costello, Esq. as resident in 1929. Soon after it was said to have only 13ha (32a) of parkland and owned by and home of John Salter Stooke-Vaughan Esq. Later it was sold to a Christian missionary organisation and used as their headquarters until 2017, during which time parts of the parkland to the west were sold for residential development and parkland to the north and east for arable use. Numerous institutional buildings to the north of the house were added.

The 1905 OS map showing the extent of the parkland (grey shading) attached to Wetheringsett Manor, shelterbelts of trees around the pleasure gardens and kitchen garden north-west of the house with orchard in the northern slip garden. (Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html)
An aerial view of the site of Wetheringsett Manor in 2020 set within a much-reduced parkland setting. Passing houses built within the original parkland, the curving west drive with its lime avenue can be seen entering the site from the left. Its original subsidiary drive passes the remains of the walled garden towards institutional buildings. (© 2024 Google Earth)

SOURCES:
Eton School Register 1791–1850.
Harrow School Register 1801–1900.
Hoppitt, Rosemary, Deer Parks of Suffolk 1086–1602, 2020.
Kelly, E. R., Post Office Directory of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk & Suffolk, 1858, 1892, 1912, 1922, 1929, 1937.
McMullen Rigg, James, ‘John Moore (1730–1805)’ in Directory of National Biography, 1885–1900, Vol. 38. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Directionary _of_National_Biography,_1885-1900 (accessed March 2021).
Mid Suffolk District Council, Wetheringsett cum Brockford Conservation Area Appraisal, 2010.
(Catalogue of) The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1838.
Walford, Edward, County Families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal Manual of the Titled and Untitled Aristocracy of Great Britain and Ireland, 1860, 1880.
White, William, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of Suffolk, 1844.
Wykeham, Peter, ‘Sir (Henry) Robert Brooke-Popham (1878–1953)’ in Oxford Directory of National Biography.

Cuttings from newspapers, etc, relative to the county of Suffolk, 1806–47, Ipswich, Saturday March 23, 1843. (accessed from https://books.google.co.uk, March 2021).
Duulcibella Mary Brooke (b. 1873), Suffolk Artist. https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=1912 (accessed March 2021)

Census: 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891.

Maps:
1783 Hodskinson’s Map of Suffolk in 1783.
1841 (surveyed 1839) tithe map and apportionments.
1884 (surveyed 1884) OS map.
1905 (revised 1903) OS map.
1952 (revised 1950) OS map.
2024 Google aerial map (Imagery © Bluesky, CNES / Airbus, Getmapping plc, Infoterra Lts & Bluesky, Maxar Technologies, Map data © 2024).

Heritage Assets:
Suffolk Historic Environment Record (SHER): WCB 042.
Church of All Saints (Grade I), Historic England No: 1284593.
The Old Rectory (Grade II), Historic England No: 1032234.
Wetheringsett Manor (Grade II), Historic England No: 1380203.

Suffolk Record Office (now Suffolk Archives):
SRO (Ipswich) HA99/2/19. Conveyance, 3 September 1866.
SRO (Ipswich) HD2833/2/SC242/31/28. Sales particulars of Wetheringsett Manor House Estate, 23 August 1910).
SRO (Ipswich) HD2833/1/SC455/1. Sales particulars of Wetheringsett Manor House, 23 June 1925.

Site ownership: Private Educational Institution

Study written: May 2024

Type of Study: Desktop

Written by: Tina Ranft

Amended: