Brent Eleigh Hall

Description

Brent Eleigh Hall. An attractive house, wholly Georgian in appearance. It is stuccoed, of two storeys and attics, with two far-reaching wings on the s side, away from the church. In 1607 the property was bought from Sir Robert Jermyn of Rushbrooke by Samuel Colman, grandfather of Edward Colman whose monument is in the church. Samuel either built a new house or improved an existing one. The story is complicated by a number of Samuel’s descendants dying in quick succession without issue, but a major remodelling, giving the house its present basic shape, seems to have taken place in the second decade of the c18. This must be the date of the n front, which has a five-bay pedimented centre, slightly projecting, another bay to either side enclosed by pilasters, and beyond them a broad bay with single window corresponding to the cross-wings of the original house. The staircase also belongs to this time, with two twisted balusters to the tread. The ceiling above it has a painted oval surrounded by a rich stucco garland. In the spandrels of the oblong ceiling branches with foliage. The centre panel, with Barnardiston arms and putti, was added in the 1780s, following the dismantling of the Barnardistons’ Kedington Hall; Mary Barnardiston had married Edward Goate, who inherited from the Colmans in 1739. Another set of Barnardiston arms, in stone, also from Kedington, was added to the pediment of the n front. The s front also belongs to this campaign of alterations, with canted bays added to the ends of the wings and a giant Tuscan portico placed between them. This remained the main entrance to the house until c. 1877. Sir Edwin Lutyens was busy at Brent Eleigh Hall in 1933–4. The principal external change was the Early Georgian-looking entrance doorway, and a new kitchen wing on the w side. He remodelled the entrance hall, enlarged the dining room, and made the fireplaces in the hall and dining room. – entrance gates with tall slender piers dated 1763 (not original to the house) and good 1920s lodge. (Bettley, 2015, p.114)

Bibliography

Bettley, J. (2015) Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Pevsner, N. and Radcliffe, E. (1974) Suffolk. The buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Listing Grade

I

Listing Reference

1285950

Client

H Pennoyer