Search Inventory

Claydon Old Rectory

The former rectory of Claydon lies beside the Church of St Peter, which was made redundant in 1977 and now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The rectory became a private residence by 1955 and is best known for its resident incumbent during the second half of the nineteenth century, the Revd George Drury, who was noted for his Anglo-Catholic sentiment and antagonising many of the local population. This culminated in the ‘Akenham Burial Case’ of 1878, the neighbouring parish that was also under George’s care. George built a surviving eccentric walled garden with towers that was said to be a Biblical allegory. Close by was an underground grotto. It is unclear how much of the wider rectory gardens were developed by George, with a gatehouse, the grotto and two viewing mounds probably of a date before his time. In the second half of the twentieth century the old rectory, gardens and walled garden became an office headquarters where a number of nineteenth century trees survive around the gardens, including a fine Cedar of Lebanon.
Not open to the public

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Claydon Parish

Theberton House

Previously known as Mount House, Prospect House and Brick House, Thomas Whiting Wootton enlarged the original house c. 1834 when it was renamed Theberton House. It passed through the family to the Milner-Gibsons who owned it into the early-twenty-first century. The present family bought Theberton House in the 1960s. Its small landscape park was probably created when the house was enlarged. An existing lane appears to have been closed as it crossed the parkland, although by 1905 it had become a public road. The remains of an eighteenth century mount with views of Leiston Abbey survives, as do a number of nineteenth century decorative wrought iron entrance gates. A stable block and walled garden with barrel-shaped roofed glasshouse and round, thatched apple store lie to the north of the house.
Not open to the public

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Theberton Parish

Cavenham Hall

A house named Cavenham Hall existed when Cavenham Park was created in the late-eighteenth century. It stood close to the village towards the northern boundary of the parkland with stables and walled garden nearby. The house was demolished at the end of the nineteenth century and a new hall was built more centrally in the park to designs by Andrew Noble Prentice, known for his Arts and Crafts buildings. He also designed a new stable block and coach house on the site of the old house and two entrance lodges. A formal garden with lawns, paths, flowerbeds and pedestals to the rear of the new house are also believed to have been by Prentice. Henry Ernest Milner designed a number of features in the gardens, including a hedged rose garden, rock garden and fernery. It is likely that Pulhamite, the artificial stone, was used for various pedestals, ornaments and rockwork. Cavenham Hall was demolished in 1947 and most of the gardens were lost. Much of the parkland survives, as do the stables and coach house, having been converted to residential properties.
Not open to the public

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Cavenham Parish

Brightwell Hall

On the site of an earlier manor house, Brightwell Hall was built in 1663 by Sir Samuel Barnardistan whose father was Sir Samuel Barnardiston of Kedington, a prominent Suffolk Puritan. Sir Samuel created a grand H-shaped mansion that is depicted in an engraving by Kip and Knyff dated 1707 surrounded by extensive formal gardens typical of the Restoration period, although it is unclear if it was an idealised depiction. It shows numerous enclosures containing parterres, lawns and orchards. Water features included a large pond linked to an ornamental canal with terraced walkway overlooked by a banqueting house and a smaller canal with summerhouse. Entry to the mansion was via a grand avenue. The house was demolished c. 1760 and remaining farm buildings became a farmhouse, also named Brightwell Hall. The estate was broken-up and sold in 1945. The house site has been redeveloped into a residential property with new formal gardens and a lake as depicted on the 1707 engraving. Linear earthworks remain that are likely to relate to avenues and walkways attached to the seventeenth century house.
Not open to the public

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Brightwell Parish

Bramford Hall

On the site of an earlier house, mid-eighteenth century Bramford Hall was built by the Acton family of Livermere Hall and stood within a small landscape park, probably of a similar date. It passed through the female line to the Middleton, Broke and Lampton Lorraine families. The house and park were requisitioned during World War II and the house was demolished in 1956 and most of the estate broken up and sold in 1972. A small part of the house survived the demolition and is now incorporated into a modern residence within an irregularly-shaped wooded garden enclosure surrounded by fields. The site includes a large square walled garden, probably contemporary with the eighteenth century house. A round entrance lodge of a similar date has not survived.
Not open to the public

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Bramford Parish

Wherstead Park

In 1784 Sir Robert Harland commissioned Jeffry Wyatville, the architect and garden designer best known for his work at Chatsworth and Winsor Castle, to substantially extend an existing house to form the Wherstead Park mansion. On the site were surviving stable block and large walled garden with a water tower, thought to have been designed at the same time. Five years later Humphry Repton, the renowned garden designer, produced one of his famous Red Books with suggestions for the site’s gardens and medium-sized landscape park. Standing on a hill overlooking the River Orwell and the town of Ipswich, using ‘picturesque’ design principles Repton’s suggestions included taking full advantage of these views from the mansion. How many of Repton’s suggestions were implemented is not known. However, opening-up the view down to the river and the development of at least two woods or coverts within the park, including one surrounding an icehouse, seem likely to have been influenced by his work. By the nineteenth century there were three entrances with lodges. After being requisitioned in both world wars, Eastern Electricity bought the site as its headquarters and added new office buildings beside the original mansion, with much of the estate sold. In 1982 the construction of the A14 leading to the Orwell Bridge cut through the northern parkland leaving just a tiny slice of woodland to the north of the house, which became a car park. By the time the East of England Co-operative Society bought the site in 2008 there remained a small area of garden near the mansion but all the parkland had been sold for agricultural use.
Not open to the general public except for business users

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Wherstead Parish

Carlton Hall and Park

Eighteenth century Carlton Hall once stood in a landscape park but was destroyed by fire on Christmas Day 1941 when requisitioned by the government for the war effort. It stood near the site of an earlier hall that may have been associated with a lost settlement centred on the surviving parish church. The Carlton Hall Estate expanded during the eighteenth century. The house, pleasure gardens, walled garden and well-wooded parkland were leased out for much of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, including to Richard Garrett III and his family. Richard had built up the family engineering business based in Leiston, his factory is now The Long Shop Museum. After World War II the estate was broken up. An industrial estate and houses were built on part of the parkland and eventually the Carlton Hall site was redeveloped to create a number of residential properties who share what remains of the gardens and a small area of parkland. A sports club owns part of the original parkland and the rest has been converted for arable use.
Not open to the public

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Kelsale cum Carlton Parish

Boxted Hall

Owned by the Poley/Weller-Poley family since the fourteenth century, the present moated Boxted Hall was built in the sixteenth century to replace an earlier house on the site that had a medieval deerpark. The house is accessed via a medieval bridge across the moat fed by the River Glem. Probably with mid-eighteenth century origins, a landscape park was developed around the house with a surviving partly-walled garden and two pavilions on the opposite side of the river within its pleasure gardens. Other walled enclosures, probably of a similar date, are on rising ground north of the moat. The river fed a series of channels that are suggestive of wildfowl management and documented in the nineteenth century as ponds with water lilies, reed beds and willows. Other features included shrubberies, a fern garden and stumpery with a number of mature ornamental trees. There was also a dovecote, ice house and surviving entrance lodge.
Not open to the public except to hire for house parties, weddings and events.

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Boxted Parish

Poslingford House

(also known as Shadow Bush and Poslingford Park)
Named after the ancient woodland nearby, the Shadowbush Estate was originally owned by the Golding family. Through marriage it passed to Colonel Thomas Weston who built the present neoclassical house c. 1820 with pleasure grounds and surrounding park with two entrances and lodges. The walled garden was attached to a coach house to the north. In 1844 it was sold into the Severne family, changed ownership twice during the twentieth century and again in 2016/7. Today there is little change in the extent and character of the gardens and parkland, although the lodge to the southern drive is now in ruins. The walled garden and attached coach house were converted to residential in the 2010s, using the northern drive for access.
Not open to the public

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Poslingford Parish

Rushbrooke Hall

Demolished in 1961, sixteenth century Rushbrooke Hall once occupied a moated site within a landscape park that is known to have been in existence in 1703, but probably had much earlier origins. The mansion was altered in the early-eighteenth century to the fashionable Georgian style, although maintaining its basic U-shaped plan. The moat survives within the gardens of a new house that was built attached to the walled garden during the twentieth century. Now substantially reduced in size and turned to arable, the park expanded and contracted over time and once had a number of vistas and drives, some of which survive as tracks and paths, although its entrance lodges have gone. It also included a surviving remote early-eighteenth century canal but a smaller canal just west of the mansion was in-filled during the nineteenth century. The irregularly-shaped pleasure garden enclosure included a surviving walled garden with attached stables, orchard, belts of trees and shrubs and a raised terrace and walkway. In the first half of the twentieth century many of the estate village homes were rebuilt in mock-Tudor and Modernist styles.
Not open to the public

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Rushbrooke with Rougham Parish