Henham Hall, Suffolk (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Wangford with Henham.
In the historic county of Suffolk.
Modern Authority of Suffolk.
1974 county of Suffolk.
Medieval County of Suffolk.

OS Map Grid Reference: TM450773
Latitude 52.33881° Longitude 1.60244°

Henham Hall, Suffolk has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry footings remains.

Description

Large courtyard-plan house built c. 1520's-1530's by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk on his ancestral estate (feudal overlordship granted to him 1513 - formerly held by the de la Poles, Dukes of Suffolk - but the Brandon family had been mesne lords in the 15th century). Sold to the Crown in 1538 and granted 1545 to Sir Anthony Rous, whose descendents still own the estate (Copinger: MacCulloch: Gunn and Lindley).
House described 1538 as "a faier newe howse well buylded with tymber and fayer lyghtys and at the cumming in to the Court a faier yate howe of breake newly buylded with iiii turrettes" (MacCullcoh). House is shown, with elevations, on R. Nicholson's map of Henham 1699. There is also a drawing of the front elevation - a copy circa 1820 of a drawing by Joshua Kirby circa 1750 (reproduced in MacCulloch and Gunn and Lindley); Suckling has a Victorian elaboration of it between pages 354 & 355). The front elevation with a 3-storey gatehouse and corner towers was of brick, the remainder of the house seems to have been of timber. House was burnt down in a fire 8 May 1773 and demolished (Suckling). Site lies to the south of the walled garden, in the garden of the later house. (Suffolk HER)

Site investigated by TimeTeam in 2012. Foundations of Tudor manor identified on geophysics and partly uncovered. Medieval hall timber hall also identified. A buried ditch surrounding the site was identified as a moat by landscape archaeologist Steward Ainsworth (although the suggestion seems to have also been made earlier (Suffolk HER HAM 017). Had a deer park in C16 (Suffolk HER HAM 019) which was probably of earlier origins. A stated by Francis Prior many medieval houses in this area were moated but few were of the status to have attached deer parks. The Tudor house had crenellated corner turrets, at least on the front face. The moated medieval house was certainly of the form and status of many house granted a license to crenellate, although there is no record of this house having such a licence. The Tudor house had that mix of renaissance and martial decorative form characteristic of such high status houses. TimeTeam found pottery dating from C11 through to current. Henham has been suggested as the site of a DMV (PastScape record 392071).

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 392070.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) HAM 015; HAM 017.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Henham Park
  Francis Pryor – In the Long Run Time Team Series 20, episode 3, Henham Hall, Suffolk: a place with Latitude
Books
- MacCulloch, D., 1986, Suffolk and the Tudors Politics and Religion in an English County 1500-1600 (Oxford: Clarendon Press) p. 67 & pl 4a
  Copinger, W.A., 1908, The Manors of Suffolk Vol. 2 p. 80-3 online copy
  Suckling, A., 1848, History & Antiquities of the County of Suffolk Vol. 2 p. 349-61
Periodical Articles
- Gunn, .J. and Lindley, P.G., 1988 'Charles Brandon's Westhorpe: an Early Tudor Courtyard House in Suffolk' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 145 p. 272-89 (Survey of 1538)
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- 1849, 10th Report Deputy Keeper of Public Records App. 2 p. 263 (Transfer to Anthony Rous 1538)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Time Team (Francis Pryor presenting archaeologist), 2013 January 20 (1st broadcast), 'Henham's Lost Mansions' Time Team TV Programme (Time Team, a Videotext/Picture House production for Channel 4) view online

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
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