Helmingham Hall
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Helmingham Hall is a moated
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...
in
Helmingham Helmingham is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England, 12 miles (20 km) east of Stowmarket, and 12 miles north (20 km) of Ipswich. It has a population of 170, increasing to 186 at the 2011 Census. It ...
,
Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...
, England. It was begun by John Tollemache in 1480 and has been owned by the
Tollemache family The Tollemache family (also historically spelt Talmach or Tallemache) is an England, English noble family, originally from Suffolk. The family's surname is pronounced . Members of the family have had a significant impact on the economy and polit ...
ever since. The house is built around a courtyard in typical late medieval/Tudor style. The house is listed Grade I on the
National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...
, and its park and formal gardens are also Grade I listed on the
Register of Historic Parks and Gardens #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
.


History

The present Helmingham Hall may have been initially constructed in 1510 on the site of an earlier house called Creke Hall. The exterior was altered between 1745 and 1760, again in 1800 by John Nash, and in 1840. The original half-timbered walls have been concealed by brick and tiles. The house is surrounded by a
moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...
60 feet wide, over which it is reached only by two working
drawbridges A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...
, which have been pulled up every night since 1510. These were originally operated with a
windlass The windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights. Typically, a windlass consists of a horizontal cylinder (barrel), which is rotated by the turn of a crank or belt. A winch is affixed to one or both ends, and a cable or rope is wound arou ...
but in recent years this has been replaced by an electric motor. In addition to the house and gardens, several other buildings and structures on the estate are listed Grade II. The garden wall to the south west of the hall, two
urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...
s and a male and female statue, a
sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...
and an
obelisk An obelisk (; , diminutive of (') ' spit, nail, pointed pillar') is a tall, slender, tapered monument with four sides and a pyramidal or pyramidion top. Originally constructed by Ancient Egyptians and called ''tekhenu'', the Greeks used th ...
, the tea rooms, bridge, game larder, and
revetment A revetment in stream restoration, river engineering or coastal engineering is a facing of impact-resistant material (such as stone, concrete, sandbags, or wooden piles) applied to a bank or wall in order to absorb the energy of incoming water an ...
are all listed Grade II. The gate lodge to the north east of the hall and the left and right front lodges are also listed Grade II, as is the entrance gateway and piers between the front lodges. The Church of St Mary on the edge of the park has connections with the Tollemache family dating back to the Middle Ages. The church is filled with memorials to several generations of the family, including a large tomb with a verse describing four generations of Tollemaches. In 8 September 2019 near the estate grounds, an Iron Age/Roman coin hoard of 748 coins dating to 47 AD during the
Roman conquest of Britain The Roman conquest of Britain was the Roman Empire's conquest of most of the island of Great Britain, Britain, which was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. It began in earnest in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, and was largely completed in the ...
was discovered. 63 coins entered the collection of the
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
and Colchester and Ipswich Museums, the rest placed on auction at
Noonans Mayfair Noonans Mayfair, formerly Dix Noonan Webb, is an auction house based in London. It specialises in coins, medals, jewellery and paper money. Since being established, the firm has sold over 400,000 lots. It holds regular traditional auctions throu ...
on 18 September 2024. The proceeds is to be split between the finder and the current owners.


Gardens

Though the house is not open to the public, Helmingham is best known for its fine gardens which are open to the public from May to September. There are semi-formal mixed gardens with extensive
herbaceous borders A herbaceous border is a collection of perennial herbaceous plants (plants that live for more than two years and are soft-stemmed and non-woody) arranged closely together, usually to create a dramatic effect through colour, shape or large scale. ...
, a
rose garden A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Designs vary tremendously and roses may be displayed alongside other plants or grouped ...
, a
knot garden A knot garden is a garden style that was popularized in 16th century England and is now considered an element of the formal English garden. A knot garden consists of a variety of aromatic and culinary herbs, or low hedges such as box, planted in ...
, a
parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, plats, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the ...
, a
walled garden A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate c ...
, an
allée In landscaping, an avenue (from the French), alameda (from the Portuguese and Spanish), or allée (from the French), is a straight path or road with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each side, which is used, as its Latin source ' ...
and an orchard. Beyond the gardens there is a deer park with herds of
red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...
and
fallow deer Fallow deer is the common name for species of deer in the genus ''Dama'' of subfamily Cervinae. There are two living species, the European fallow deer (''Dama dama''), native to Europe and Anatolia, and the Persian fallow deer (''Dama mesopotamic ...
. Lady (Alexandra) Tollemache is a
garden designer A garden designer is someone who designs the plan and features of gardens, either as an amateur or professional. The compositional elements of garden design and landscape design are: terrain, water, planting, constructed elements and buildings, ...
who works under the name Xa Tollemache. She supervises the gardens at Helmingham and has also worked on the Millennium Garden at Castle Hill in Devon,
Dunbeath Castle Dunbeath Castle is located on the east coast of Caithness, south of Dunbeath, in northern Scotland. Although a castle has stood here since the 15th century, the present building is of mainly 17th-century origin, with 19th-century extensions. ...
in Scotland, and the Cloister Garden at
Wilton House Wilton House is an English country house at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire, which has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years. It was built on the site of the medieval Wilton Abbey. Following the dissolution ...
.


Contents

The Tollemaches of Helmingham own one of the only two English
Orpharion The orpharion ( or ) or opherion is a plucked stringed instrument from the Renaissance, a member of the cittern family. Its construction is similar to the larger bandora (instrument), bandora and is an ancestor of the guitar. The metal strings a ...
viol The viola da gamba (), or viol, or informally gamba, is a bowed and fretted string instrument that is played (i.e. "on the leg"). It is distinct from the later violin family, violin, or ; and it is any one of the earlier viol family of bow (m ...
s. Their instrument is dated 1580 and bears the label of John Rose, a 16th-century English viol-maker. Of the four John Rose viols which survive, this is the only one in private hands. It is believed to have been made for
Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history ...
who presented it to them during one of her visits to Suffolk. The "Tollemache
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...
manuscript" was acquired from the Helmingham Hall collections and sold by
Sotheby's Sotheby's ( ) is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine art, fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
in 1965 to Robert Spencer. It was written by Henry Sampson. Robert Spencer, the present owner of the manuscript, maintains "Tollemache" in its common reference, despite the change of owner.
Catherine Tollemache Catherine or Katherine Tollemache ({{nee Cromwell; 1557 – 24 March 1621) was an English aristocrat, who collected and wrote culinary and medical recipes, and was known for her healing skills. Family She was the daughter of Henry Cromw ...
lived at the hall from 1581 to 1612, many household papers from her time survive, with her collection of contemporary and medieval recipes.


In media

The hall has been used for filming including; BBC One's ''
Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...
''; the
Merchant Ivory A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...
film, ''
The Golden Bowl ''The Golden Bowl'' is a 1904 novel by Henry James. Set in England, this complex, intense study of marriage and adultery completes what some critics have called the "major phase" of James's career. ''The Golden Bowl'' explores the tangle of in ...
'' and the 2019 BBC documentary '' Danny Dyer's Right Royal Family''.


See also

*
List of country houses in the United Kingdom This is intended to be as full a list as possible of country houses, castles, palaces, other stately homes, and manor houses in the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands; any architecturally notable building which has served as a residence for ...


References


External links

* * {{Authority control Country houses in Suffolk Grade I listed buildings in Suffolk Grade I listed houses Grade I listed parks and gardens in Suffolk John Nash (architect) buildings Mid Suffolk District Tudor architecture Houses with moats