Summary
The pleasure grounds of an early C18 house, including ornamental canal, walled garden, lawns and structural planting.
Reasons for Designation
Abbot's Hall, Stowmarket, Suffolk, the pleasure grounds of a Grade II* listed early-C18 house, is registered at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest:
* for the medieval camping ground that forms part of the distinctive social and sporting history of East Anglia.
Design interest:
* as a well-preserved pleasure ground layout, with walled garden, ornamental ponds, lawns and structural planting on the settled edge of the market town;
* for the design interest of the ornamental canal and fish pond, as well as the associated smaller water features.
Group value:
* for the strong relationship between the Grade II* listed house, Grade II fishing lodge and the ornamental canal and fish pond;
* for the presence of the Grade II listed walled garden within the wider pleasure ground design.
History
The grounds of Abbot's Hall, a short distance south of the Market Place at Stowmarket, were first recorded as part of a monastic grange belonging to the priory of St Osyth (Essex). The priory (established in 1118) had been endowed with land in Stowmarket in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135). In 1347 the town was granted a market charter and the right to hold an annual fair on the Camping Land, which continues to form part of the land associated with Abbot's Hall.
Camping lands were used as sports pitches for the traditional East Anglian ball game, 'Camp-Ball'. Camp-ball was popular from the medieval period through to the mid-C19 when it was gradually surpassed by less violent games of rugby and association football.
The large 'tithe' barn to the north-west of Abbot's Hall is the best preserved feature of the medieval estate, with little known about the house or its grounds. However, the ponds on the southern boundary of the pleasure grounds may have originated as medieval fish ponds (the smaller eastern pond may have been used for spawning, the main pond for stocking fish, and the moated western platform may have provided over-flow channels to keep the main pond from stagnating). The ponds occupy an area of high ground and are fed by a pair of springs.
A separate pond to the north of the house is rain-fed and may have originated as a marl pit.
St Osyth's priory was suppressed in 1539 and its estates passed first to Thomas Cromwell, then (1540) to the Crown, and by 1561 Abbot's Hall belonged to a clothier named John Howe.
On her marriage to Charles Blosse in 1681, Alice Howe brought the estate into new ownership. Blosse is thought to have been responsible for the rebuilding of the hall in 1709 when the current house was constructed. It is likely to be around that time that the ponds were brought into their present form, with a terraced walkway surrounding a canal-like main pond and an off-centre island.
Ornamental canals are a feature of historic Suffolk gardens, a fashion that has been attributed to the creation of similar features at St James's Palace and Hampton Court for Charles II during the 1660s.
The fishing lodge, an early- to mid-C18 brick-built pavilion that stands on the island in the main pond, may post-date the death of Charles Blosse in 1724.
In 1766 the estate came into the ownership of Richard Rout on his marriage to Sarah Cobboll. Details of the sale describe the 'houses edifices buildings dovehouses barnes stables malthouses yards gardens orchards old and new cherry grounds fish ponds water and banksides', alongside 110 acres. C18 daffodil types have been identified in the walled garden.
In 1803 Abbot's Hall was sold by auction, with sale particulars noting 'the Orchard and Gardens are well planted with choice Fruit Trees, now in full Bearing; the Ponds well stocked with Fish'.
The 1840 Tithe Apportionment for the parish of Stowmarket records the recently widowed Ann Sarah Rust as the occupier of Abbot's Hall (John Edgar Rust died in March 1840), while most of the associated land was occupied by Ambrose Canler. The tithe map, produced in 1839, shows the estate in detail. It records the camping ground at the north-east of the hall, the carriage drive around the north front of the house, the principal approach from the Market Place, the walled garden to the east of the house and the farm buildings to the north-west. It also shows the canal-like fish pond, and records the summer house and garden on the island within the fish pond. A 'stackyard' is recorded in the position of the moated platform to the west of the fish pond. The land between the house and the ponds is described as orchard and pasture.
The site was sold in 1858 to a Mr Hewitt, and again in 1859 to William Prentice. The latter added a conservatory to the hall's eastern side and a canopy to its south elevation.
Following the death of William Prentice, the estate was again sold in 1877, at which time it included 'Pleasure Grounds'.
The 1:1500 1884 Ordnance Survey map for Stowmarket shows the grounds of Abbot's Hall in clear detail. At that date the camping land was largely separated from the grounds of the house, access to which was via a gateway close to the oval carriage drive. Trees were densely planted around the pond to the north of the house. A coniferous tree plantation occupied the hollow on the south side of the farmyard. The south lawn which occupies the area between the house and the ponds had a large number of deciduous trees, three of which had seats at their base. A well is recorded in the south lawn. The terraced walkways around the large fish pond at the bottom of the south lawn are illustrated with trees around them, a seat placed axially with the path from the house, and a small boating pier on the north bank of the pond itself. The moated platform is shown with water-filled ditches, and rows of smaller trees which may indicate an orchard. The walled garden to the east of the house is shown with a small structure in the south-east corner (no longer extant, photographs show that this was a thatched summer house).
By 1903 the Camping Land had been cut diagonally by a brick wall on the side of an older footpath. This brought a greater amount of garden into the private area around the house and significantly reduced the common ground beyond it.
The estate was bought by Captain Herbert Davey Longe in 1904. Longe installed a Boulton and Paul greenhouse on the north side of the walled garden, followed later by a potting shed on the outside of the north wall.
The 1924 25" Ordnance Survey is the first to record the thatched boat house that once stood on the eastern side of the island in the large fish pond. All physical evidence of the boat house had vanished by the end of the century.
In 1963 the last owners of Abbot's Hall, Vera and Ena Longe, began the process of entrusting the site for museum use. In that year, Abbot's Hall barn and two acres of land were made available for that purpose, and in 1966 the Museum of East Anglian Life opened. A visitor centre was constructed in 1987. The last permanent inhabitant of the hall died in 1996. By 2005 the hall itself and a total of 70 acres had come into museum use. In 2012 the conservatory was recreated on the east side of the house. In 2022, the site was renamed the Food Museum.
The museum's collections include several relocated buildings. Some of these now occupy part of the former farmyard around the medieval tithe barn; others have been erected on the agricultural land to the south of the gardens.
Details
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, AND LANDFORM
The gardens of Abbot's Hall occupy roughly 11.5 acres of land on the south side of Stowmarket, connected to the town's historic market place by Crowe Street. It is bounded on the east by Crowe Lane, and on the west by Abbot's Hall Road. The southern boundary of the gardens directly adjoins the agricultural land associated with Abbot's Hall. Both the gardens and agricultural land form part of the Food Museum.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Abbot's Hall was added to the List at Grade II* in 1950. It is an C18 country house, dated 1709 on one chimney stack. It was extended to the south and west between 1896 and 1910. It is constructed of brown brick with red brick dressings and has plain tile roofs. It occupies a roughly central position within the garden setting. Historically the house had views north over the rooftops of Stowmarket to the parish church, and south towards Combs Ford. These views have been reduced as the trees within the pleasure grounds have matured.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The principal historic point of access was from the direction of the market place, via Crowe Street. Today this entrance is marked by C20 iron gates (one double gateway for vehicles, and a single gateway for pedestrians) with diamond-latticed gateposts. These form part of iron railings that connect to the brick boundary wall that bisects the former Camping Land at the north-east boundary of the gardens. Through the gates, a C20 avenue passes a fish pond on the west side before connecting to the oval carriage drive at the north front of the house.
The main entrance to the grounds today (2023) is via the museum shop, constructed in 1987, adjoining the Grade II* 'Tithe' Barn. Paths from the shop lead to the carriage drive and to the museum buildings gathered around the historic farmyard.
Other informal access points exist at the south-western corner of the grounds, and on the southern boundary in line with the fishing lodge. These are integrated with the museum grounds and are not formal entrances.
PLEASURE GROUNDS
There is no evidence to suggest that Abbot's Hall ever had a large area of parkland. Instead, the presiding character of the gardens is that of a pleasure ground, with water features, a walled garden, lawns, and mixed tree plantations with some specimen trees.
To the north of the house, beyond the carriage drive and principal approach, there is a mixture of mature, mostly deciduous, trees. Close to the walled garden there is a small pet cemetery which marks the graves of four dogs from the early years of the C20 (the names Dolly, Pat and Rags are visible).
The south lawn extends from the house to the fish ponds. The east and west boundaries are screened by trees, including some specimen limes, Copper beeches and an Atlas cedar.
Between the western plantation and the museum buildings at the north-east corner of the gardens there is a steep L-shaped bank that drops to create a large hollow. The bank is covered in a mixture of trees, and a clump of Scots pines stands within the hollow.
CAMPING LAND
Historically the Camping Land included the area of nearly two acres between the house and walled garden, and the buildings on the east side of Crowe Street. Since at least 1903 this area has been divided in two by a brick wall that runs diagonally across it, from north-west to south-east. The wall is built of red brick laid in monk bond. The garden area that remained on the same side as Abbot's Hall is now incorporated with the pleasure grounds above. To the east of the wall there is now a publicly accessible area of grass with tarmac pathways and mature beech trees. At the northernmost part of this plot, separated by a C21 fence, is a separate area planted with a variety of coniferous trees.
FISHPONDS
At the southern end of the garden there is a series of three ponds. The smallest, at the south-east corner of the garden, is the least formal and has steep sides around an irregular circular pond, now surrounded by trees.
The largest pond has the long rectangular shape of an ornamental canal (in fact, it tapers from 40m wide at the western end to 28m wide at the east). Around its edges are wide banks, over a metre high and between six and twelve metres wide. These banks form a terraced walkway around the entire perimeter of the central pond. A set of steps has been dug into the earth in an axial relationship with the top of the north bank and the south side of the house. Flanking the bottom of the steps are two rendered brick pedestals. The banks now feature a large number of mature trees, including some that may date to the creation of the banks themselves such as the wide-trunked lime tree on the north side. A square-shaped island at the western end of the pond can be accessed by a footbridge on the west side. At the centre of the island is a brick-built 'fishing lodge' or summer house (Grade II listed) with a plain-tiled pyramidal roof.
West of this is a moated platform, historically used as a stackyard and possibly an orchard. Its water-filled channels may have been intended to regulate the fresh water in the larger pond. The moated platform has a long rectangular shape, and lies significantly below the ground level of the garden, with steep banks rising from the outer edges of the channels.
North of the house is a fourth pond, also marked as a fish pond on historic maps. It has steep sides and a roughly circular shape. It may have originated as a marl pit.
WALLED GARDEN
Between the eastern boundary and the conservatory on the eastern side of the house is an C18 walled garden, listed at Grade II. On the north side, the outer face of the walls are built of roughly coursed flint. The inner face of the north wall, and the entirety of the east and south walls, are built of red brick laid in monk bond. There is a Boulton and Paul greenhouse attached to the inner face of the north wall, adjacent to which is a vertically weather-boarded potting shed on the outer side. The pathways within the garden have changed over time and now (2023) have been restored to roughly approximate their late Victorian configuration.
OTHER BUILDINGS
The stables to the west of the house and carriage drive are Grade II listed. They are built of red brick with a pantiled roof and were constructed in the late-C19 with an arcaded loggia, book-ended by cross-wing gables.
West of the house and south of the Grade II* listed 'Tithe' Barn are a number of unlisted museum buildings occupying the area of the historic farmyard.
