Details
TF 6941 OLD HUNSTANTON
7/61 Hunstanton Hall,
moat bridge and garden
5/6/53 and forecourt walls.
G.V. I
Country House. Gatehouse 1487, wings c.1625-1640, additions 1835, 1873 and 1879. Seat of the Le Strange family from marriage with the heiress of the Domesday owner until sale after Second World War. Inherited by the Styleman family in 1760. Henry Styleman (1815-1862) added Le Strange to his name in 1839, restored Old Hunstanton church and initiated with his son Sir Hamon Le Strange the development of New Hunstanton.
Gatehouse brick, wings chequerwork clunch and carstone, returns carstone; C19 wings flint and carstone. Largely 2-storey moated courtyard house. Gatehouse and bridge, originally detached. To west, a C16 house burnt down and demolished in 1853 except for porch, now free standing, dated 1618. Courtyard formed by wings to north, south and
west of gatehouse c.1620-1640. Perpendicular gateway block 2 storeys with
parapet and flat roof. Battered brick plinth, 2 ground floor 4-centred stone
mullioned casements with drip moulds, 2-single light casements with external
protective iron stay bar. Central gateway with 4-centred stone carriage arch
with shields and clasped hands in spandrels, drip moulds above. C15 2-leaf
oak panelled gates. 3 first floor arched 2-light wooden framed casements with lead glazing bars, cement rustication and stone drip moulds. Pierced stone tracery ventilation panels at ground floor, stone quoins and parapet string course, brick battlements with stone copings. 4 single brick shaft stacks at four corners. 2 central double shaft stacks at mid-point of parapet at north and south. 2 lead downpipes with monogram and date HS 1757 on hoppers. Soffit of arch ribbed vaulted roof on corbels, north return with one blocked chamfered brick 4-centred door and window, south with one blocked and one open 4-centred door, stone rear arch to court.
Attached at east bridge over moat, single stone dressed arch, brick abutments and parapet continued parallel with moat to north and south as wall. Ranges to north and south of gatehouse forming an enclosed court c.1625-1640 for Sir Hamon Le Strange (b,1583) a mixture of vernacular Gothic and Jacobean classicism, perhaps by William Edge (1584-1643), stone mason, and his family.
East entrance facade 2 symmetrical 2 storey 4 window ranges returned to west on "L" plan. Rubble carstone with galleting to plinth, chequer work knapped flint and carstone ground and first floor, cement rendered brick dressings, stone quoins, string course and battlements. Range to north roofless and burnt out since 1947 has 3 ground floor mullioned casements, 3 with 3-lights, one with 2-lights, first floor 3 3-light and one 2-light mullioned and transomed windows.
South range with 4 ground floor windows, 3 with 3-lights, one of 2-lights, 4 first floor windows, 3 of 4-lights, one of 2-lights. Ground floor windows mullioned only, first floor mullioned and transomed with lead glazing bars. 4 lead downpipes with HS 1757 on hoppers. Within courtyard the gatehouse return with 2 inserted c.1625 doors, and 3 first floor windows.
North wing with one first floor window and to north-west return 2 ground floor 3-light windows, 2 lancets and 3 doors. 4 first floor windows, 2 with surviving mullions.
South orangery wing, with one first floor window and to south-west return a facade matching that of north wing with 3 ground floor doors, 2 ground and 3 first floor windows, with mullions, transomes and leaded glazing bars. All the ground floor doors are of classical inspiration with architrave surrounds and arches with keystones, and 3 and 4-panelled doors with ribbing arranged in heads as fanlight pattern. Formerly connected at south west with C16 house now demolished.
At north west corner a domestic range of 3 storeys dated 1873. High Victorian Gothic, perhaps by Frederick Preedy architect, with attached at south single storey wall incorporating mid C19 west porch of demolished C16 block. Behind 1873 block a 2 storey range of 2 builds, said to be the earliest part of the house,with c.1700 wooden framed mullioned and transomed casement windows with glazing bars. Formerly gabled at north west corner, now cut down to flat roof. c.1900 Tudoresque single storey brick block.
Attached at north west, west and south west carstone garden walls. At west as a carstone and stone dressed parapet wall along the moat dated 1622.
Service wing parallel with north side of court, 2 storey with attics, partly burnt out and rootless, flint with stone dressings, dated 1835, attics and gables dated 1879.
Single storey "L" plan wing at north east is not of special interest. Prominent brick stacks throughout of c.1873.
See Christopher Hussey, "Hunstanton Hall", in Country Life, LIX, 1926, pp. 552-9, 586-95.
Burke's and Savill's Guide to Country Houses, H. Montgomery - Massingbred (ed) Vol. III, East Anglia (1981) p.144.
Listing NGR: TF6919341826
