Search Inventory

Worlingham Hall

Incorporating elements of an earlier house, plans for a new mansion were prepared by John Soane in 1785, but designs by Francis Sandy were eventually used for Georgian Worlingham Hall built c. 1800 with attached surviving orangery and open colonnade. The house sat in a lozenge-shaped garden enclosure. Its park expanded after the enclosure of common land in 1787, and afterwards planted with trees creating a landscape park, including picturesque elements such as a castle folly. The park took in the remains of a duck decoy and had a dovecote and icehouse, neither surviving. It included two entrance lodges and, changing owners a number of times over the following centuries, the estate and parkland contracted and expanded, had a bypass road constructed through its eastern plantation and a housing estate built on the western parkland. Today the pleasure gardens have expanded beyond the original garden enclosure, the stables, coach house and offices have been converted for holiday accommodation and the house is let out as a venue for weddings and events set in a parkland that includes a number of mature ornamental trees. The principle walled kitchen garden sat outside of the park and some of its crinkle-crankle walls survive as the boundaries of houses built in the late-twentieth century.
Not open to the public except for holiday accommodation and special events

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Worlingham Parish

Milden Hall

Once the site of a manor house, Milden Hall had become a farmhouse by the eighteenth century. It stands in an isolated position in the rural parish of Milden and just west of the site of Milden Castle, thought to have been a minor twelfth century motte and bailey, but now just a mound. The Hall was either rebuilt or altered in the mid-eighteenth century creating what has been described as a farmhouse that looked more like a small Georgian mansion. The site also includes two historic barns that probably date to the sixteenth century. Showing a great deal of continuity of field boundaries over the last two centuries, it is still farmed and now owned by the same family who are documented as tenants in the mid-nineteenth century. The estate is now environmentally farmed and has diversified into wildlife courses, holiday accommodation, special events and guided group visits.
Not open to the public except for booked courses, tours, accommodation and special events

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Milden Parish

Otley Hall

With fifteenth century origins, Otley Hall stands in the remains of a quadrangular moat. Much reduced in size, once the home of the Gosnold family. Important and well-connected, it is believed the 1606 voyage to establish the settlement of Jamestown, USA, was planned at Otley. A small moated island lies west of the Hall that may have been a remote ornamental garden retreat for the family. In the late-seventeenth century it became a farmhouse until reverting to a private home in the early-twentieth century. Much of what is seen in the gardens today dates back to this period, including the work of landscape designer Francis Inigo Thomas who created an H-shaped canal. At the end of the twentieth century Sylvia Landsberg was consulted on the creation of the knot garden and other features with a ground maze added in the early-twenty-first century.
Gardens open to the public on specific days for charity

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Otley Parish

Nettlestead Chace

Nineteenth century Nettlestead Chace was built on the site of the former manor house of Nettlestead Hall, an important Tudor mansion held by the powerful Wentworth family. Originally with a deer park first documented in the fourteenth century, the Hall and probably the park had lost their importance and deteriorated by the time the Wentworth family sold the estate in the seventeenth century. By the nineteenth century Nettlestead Chace became a farmhouse. A sixteenth century gatehouse that was part of the wall surrounding the original mansion survives at the entrance to Nettlestead Chace and within the gardens of the house there is an early-nineteenth century rustic octagonal shell summerhouse. The remains of a walled garden of unknown date also survive. Originally a fishpond that was converted to an ornamental canal by the late-eighteenth century and marked on maps with a boathouse at the beginning of the twentieth century is north of the house. The parish church and former rectory lie beyond. The site once included a courtyard of farm buildings, now converted to residential use, and a dovecote that was used as a grain silo and finally demolished in the mid-twentieth century. Today the house is a private residence.
Not open to the public

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Nettlestead Parish

Chantry Park

Now a large public park for the people of Ipswich, Chantry Park originally developed in the eighteenth century around the The Chantry built c. 1700 but substantially remodelled in the Italianate style in the mid-nineteenth century. The park expanded and contracted over time. The south-west drive winds its way through the parkland to the house, having passed a naturalistic grove and lake that is now known as Beech Water and designated a County Wildlife Site. The main entrance to the house is from the north with mid-nineteenth century surviving ornamental gate piers and gate house. A surviving early-nineteenth century lime avenue leads from the house site southward towards the London Road. A large walled garden complex lies west of the house that was first developed in the eighteenth century. Surrounding the house there are formal gardens featuring intricate patterns of box topiary, gravel beds, urns and terracing and said to be the work of William Nesfield, the renowned landscape designer, in the nineteenth century. An L-shaped pond lies east of the house, possibly the remains of a moat around an earlier house. Landscaping in this area was by Roger Notcutt in the early-twentieth century. Much of the garden layout survives from these periods and there are a number of mature and veteran trees in the park. Since being donated as a public park in 1927, a number of sporting facilities have developed within its boundaries.
Historic England’s Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest (Grade II)
Park open to the public

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Ipswich

Friston Hall

Once the site of a sixteenth century mansion, the remains of Friston Hall stand isolated from Friston village. It had a succession of wealthy and influential owners including the Bacon, Johnson and Wentworth families, the latter still in residence. Part of the estate was sold to become the Black Heath Estate and most of the mansion demolished in the early-nineteenth century when a tenanted farmhouse. Some walls from a seventeenth century enclosure around the house and octagonal summerhouse survive, as do an eighteenth century gateway with ornate iron gates on the central axis of an entrance drive with a replanted avenue of trees that dates back at least the eighteenth century, although likely to be much older.
Not open to the public

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Friston Parish

Stowehill

Built in 1792, the Georgian country house of Stowehill has been altered and extended but retains many original features. The layout of the grounds with two walled gardens, a shelterbelt of trees giving privacy from the road, circular drive, formal gardens and small area of parkland has changed little since the mid-nineteenth century and may date back to the late-eighteenth century. It sits on a site referred to as ‘Folley’ on a 1783 map, suggesting an earlier ornamental parkland feature, and has a once rectangular ornamental pond parallel and south of the house that may have early origins as an ornamental canal connected to the folly.
Not open to the public

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Hartest Parish

Grundisburgh Hall

Standing in a small late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century park, the present Grundisburgh Hall dates back to the early-seventeenth century on the site of an earlier house, but was altered and reduced in size in the twentieth century. The park has remained substantially intact and veteran and mature trees are dotted around the parkland and in thin tree belts. Water meadows to the south-east of the house were converted into a lake during the twentieth century. The site includes a former seventeenth century stable block, pleasure grounds and walled garden that probably dates back to the seventeenth century.
Not open to the public

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Grundisburgh Parish

Tostock Place

An early-nineteenth century house retaining part of an earlier mansion, Tostock Place sits in a small nineteenth century park, also with earlier origins. The site contains a listed walled kitchen garden with crinkle-crankle walls on all sides. Part of the house was demolished in the twentieth century and the remainder now split into three properties, although that named Tostock Place retains the parkland. The coach house with the walled garden and former fives court have been converted for residential purposes and are in separate ownership.
Not open to the public

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Tostock Parish

Broxtead House

A small country house built at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Broxtead House was intended to be at the heart of a farming estate created by improving its poor sandy soils using progressive agricultural techniques. Due to falling prices and debts, it was sold and became part of the large Rendelsham Hall Estate to be used for sporting purposes. Sold in the early-twentieth century, the house is now rented out and half of the land is cultivated with the rest developed for recreational purposes. Remnants of heathland are being preserved and extended.
Not open to the public

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Sutton Parish