Surrounding the listed Somerleyton Hall (Grade II*), a formal nineteenth century garden partly by W. A. Nesfield, with pleasure grounds and walled kitchen gardens (Grade II*) containing plant houses probably influenced by Joseph Paxton, set in the park of this manor house of seventeenth century origin with nineteenth century alterations.
Gardens open to the general public at certain times of the year. Check their website for details.
Kentwell Hall is a moated manor house surrounded by gardens dating from the mid-sixteenth century with later developments that include partially moated walled gardens. It stands in a roughly triangular-shaped park with seventeenth century origins that was developed in the late-eighteenth century, possibly by Humprey Repton, and later in the early-nineteenth century.
Gardens open to the general public at certain times and for event days. Check their website for details.
Built c. 1812, Kesgrave House was a large country house built on rising ground with a dramatic undercroft and overlooking Playford Mere in the Fynn valley. It incorporated farm buildings from an earlier house at Pogson’s Farm that became its stable yard and service buildings. It was demolished c. 1841 and the site was eventually cut in two by the railway line that opened between Ipswich and Woodbridge in 1859. All that remains of the house site is an embankment representing the site of the undercroft and, separated by the railway line, the remains of Pogson’s Farm, now known as Colonial’s Farm Cottage.
Not open to the public
Pakenham Old Hall is the site of Pakenham Hall, a large Tudor manor house and home to the Spring family during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Depicted on a map of 1783 when owned by the Gough Calthorpe family, it once had an avenue of trees and series of ponds on the central axis of the mansion that stretched out to the north-west. The mansion was demolished between 1804 and 1810 and the site became a tenanted farmhouse and known as Old Hall Farm. The present house on the site is believed to have been built c. 1910 when it became known as Pakenham Old Hall. The site of the old mansion can be seen in cropmarks and the avenue has survived as a thicket of trees and shrubs with overgrown ponds.
Not open to the public
Said to be on the site of a substantial earlier house, Wissett Hall has an early-seventeenth century core but was substantially altered and extended in the late-Victorian and early-twentieth century in the Arts and Crafts style. A farmhouse by the early-nineteenth century, and probably from a much earlier date, it had a small area of garden and parkland until surrounding fields were slowly taken in and converted to wooded parkland during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the early-twentieth century the alterations to the house and gardens may have been designed by Walter Sarel, an architect renowned for his conversation of much earlier buildings in the Arts and Craft style, at the same time redesigning the gardens in the same style with a mix of garden compartments and wilder areas, influenced by and often working with Gertrude Jekyll. At this time features added were a walled garden with crinkle-crankle walls and terraced lawn with ha-ha. The gardens continue to be maintained as separate areas with a rose garden and formal box garden.
Not open to the public
On the site of an earlier house, early-nineteenth century Rookery Park, historically called The Rookery, stands in its own park to the east of the village of Yoxford. The house is not listed by Historic England due to later substantial alterations. The park was in existence at the end of the eighteenth century and some parkland trees survive from this period, although mostly they date to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A canal-like pond and partly-walled garden were in existence at the beginning of the nineteenth century, both perhaps of an earlier date, with a late nineteenth century cottage orné lodge at the entrance. In the early-twentieth century a new stable block, serpentine lakes and formal north garden were constructed. Rookery Park changed ownership many times during the nineteenth and early-twentieth century, finally becoming the property of the present family who have owned it for over a century and who are conducting a programme of partial restoration/repurposing of the gardens and buildings on the site.
Not open to the public except for booked holiday accommodation
One of the larger of the village houses, Satis House was originally built in the mid-eighteenth century but has later alterations and extensions. With no parkland of its own, its position south of Cockfield Hall and the River Yox gave it the advantage of a fine ‘borrowed’ landscape of parkland that could be viewed from its pleasure gardens, planted with a variety of ornamental trees. Late-eighteenth and nineteenth features included an irregular elongated pond, island that may have been a small mound with likely summerhouse from which to view the parkland to the north, a surviving icehouse built into the embankment beside the main A12 road between Ipswich and Lowestoft and surviving, small walled garden with low crinkle-crankle wall. In the nineteenth century Satis House had an orangery that has not survived. Part of the pleasure gardens north of the house and the stable yard are now in separate ownership with the stable building converted for residential use. Today Satis House is a hotel and restaurant with a number of nineteenth century ornamental trees surviving in its gardens.
Open to the public as a hotel and restaurant
Formerly the site of a dairy and orchard owned by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, after the Dissolution it eventually came into the hands of the Drury family who built a timber-framed house on the site in 1537, forming the core of Plumpton Hall. In an isolated position, it became a farmhouse and was bought by Sir Francis Thomas Hammond who had the house redesigned to look like a French chateau c. 1800. The River Lark flows close to the house and had been widened to form a canal-like feature in the gardens. A small park was developed around the house that incorporated ancient woodlands with tracks radiating out from the house. It began to be known as Plumpton House during the nineteenth century and was extended in the early-twentieth century. Also on the site are surviving stables and walled garden, with one late-nineteenth century entrance lodge and another dating to c. 1911. The estate was broken up in the second half of the twentieth century, much of it turned over to arable. Some of the park was retained and the house was divided into three separate properties, each allocated a portion of the pleasure gardens. The largest central property includes the early core of the house and is named Plumpton House today. The stables and farm buildings have been converted into separately owned residential properties with some new buildings added.
Not open to the public
Probably incorporating an earlier mansion, eighteenth century Sotterley Hall lies beside the parish church in a circular park, created after the closure of public highways in the late-eighteenth century, although there is evidence of an earlier deer park on the site. The park incorporated areas of ancient woodland with newer shelterbelts of trees around the perimeter. Eighteenth century features include mention of a dovecot plus surviving grotto, ha-ha, dam creating a lake with summerhouse and boathouse. There are three surviving lodges, nineteenth century stables/coach houses and service wing to the rear of the house plus notable cowsheds and water tower. An eighteenth century walled kitchen garden lies south of the house within the pleasure gardens. Many ancient oaks and a number of mature nineteenth and early-twentieth century trees survive in the park today.
Not open to the public except for special events for charity
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Sotterley ParishBuilt as the rectory for Great Bealings c. 1844, The Old Rectory commands views of St Mary’s Church and the meadows of the Lark valley. In the 1940s, when Little Bealings Rectory in the neighbouring parish became the home of the incumbent, the Great Bealings Rectory was sold and became a private residence. Its most famous resident was Lord Belstead (d. 2005), local farmer, Lord Lieutenant of the County and Minister of State for Northern Ireland and Leader of the House of Lords under Margaret Thatcher. The house sits centrally in its pleasure grounds. The layout of lawns and meandering paths surrounded by mixed plantings of trees has changed little since the nineteenth century, albeit a new enclosed garden and terrace wrapping around two sides have been more recently been added.
Not open to the public
