How Hill House is a large

Edwardian In the United Kingdom, the Edwardian era was a period in the early 20th century that spanned the reign of King Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. It is commonly extended to the start of the First World War in 1914, during the early reign of King Ge ...

house in

How Hill How Hill is a hamlet on the River Ant within The Broads National Park in Ludham parish, Norfolk, England. How Hill House, completed in 1903, was designed by Thomas Boardman, son of the architect Edward Boardman; he was Mayor of Norwich in 190 ...

, an area of

Ludham Ludham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, in the Norfolk Broads, at the end of a dyke leading to Womack Water and flowing into the River Thurne. It lies to the East of Ludham Bridge, which ...

parish,

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, England. The house overlooks the

River Ant The River Ant is a tributary river of the River Bure in the county of Norfolk, England. It is long (of which 8.75 miles are now navigable), and has an overall drop of 27 metres from source to mouth. It is said that the Ant was formerly known a ...

and is within the Broads National Park. The house was designed in the

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

revival style by the English architect Edward Thomas Boardman in 1903 who intended it to be his family's country retreat. The Boardman family owned the house until 1966 before its sale to

Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the upper-tier Local government in England, local authority for Norfolk, England. Below it there are seven second-tier district councils: Breckland District, Breckland, Broadland, Borough of Great Yarmouth, Great Yarmo ...

. Years later it was sold to

Norwich Union Norwich Union was the name of insurance company Aviva's British arm before June 2009. It was originally established in 1797. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. On 29 April 2008, Aviva a ...

who eventually gifted the house to the How Hill Trust, an environmental education charity. The house is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The architect Edward Thomas Boardman (the son of the better-known architect

Edward Boardman Edward Boardman (1833–1910) was a Norwich born architect. He succeeded John Brown as the most successful Norwich architect in the second half of the 19th century.Mayor of Norwich This is a list of mayors and the later lord mayors of the city of Norwich. Norwich had elected a mayor since 1403 when a Charter of Henry IV allowed the Freemen of the city to elect Councillors, Aldermen, Sheriffs and a Mayor serving for one ye ...

in 1905–1906. The Boardman family made the house their permanent residence in 1918, after some major expansion.How Hill House
Norfolk Historic Environment Service, accessed 7 June 2016. The house became the property of Edward's son,

Christopher Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...

, who was notable for winning gold in

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, Windsurfing, windsurfer, or Kitesurfing, kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (Land sa ...

at the 1936 Summer Olympics.BBC news report- 1936 Olympics oak tree
BBC, accessed 7 June 2016. The house remained in the Boardman family until 1966 when it was sold to

for £37,000. It then became a residential education centre before closing in 1983, and was sold to the insurance company

who leased then gifted it to the How Hill Trust, an educational charity which operates it as a children's study centre. In 1987 the house was designated as a Grade II

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

Architecture

The house was designed in the

, Jacobean style using roughcast brick. It is laid out in 2-and-a-half storeys. The roof is supported by gables with moulded timber bargeboards; it is covered in

thatching Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

. The interior remains original and includes a panelled hall, staircase and sitting room. A sun parlour was added to the west of the house in 1910 but was moved six years later. A third, matching chimney stack was added the same year.

Grounds and Olympic Oak

Just prior to the alteration period in 1910, Edward Boardman had 70,000 trees planted on the estate and set out the formal gardens to the south and the west of the property. His son, Christopher, was given an oak sapling by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

for winning a gold medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. He planted it in the grounds but it sustained damage during a storm in 1987. In an attempt to save the oak it was pollarded in 2013, but it succumbed to

Honey Fungi Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants ...

infestation. A memorial carving of Christopher's achievements in the 1936 Olympic Games was made out of the stump."Hitler's Oak Olympic Carving Completed"
How Hill Trust, retrieved 24 June 2018. The tree was one of four remaining Olympic oaks in the United Kingdom that were donated by Hitler prior to the Second World War.

References

{{authority control Gardens in Norfolk Education in Norfolk Country houses in Norfolk Grade II listed buildings in Norfolk Grade II listed houses Houses completed in 1903 Ludham