Cransford Hall, ponds, terrace wall and piers

Summary

Large Neo-Elizabethan house built in 1904.

Reasons for Designation

Cransford Hall, a large Neo-Elizabethan house built in 1904, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it is a handsome and well-preserved example of an Edwardian country house, using to good effect the stylistic features typical of Elizabethan architecture, including tall, angled chimney stacks, mullioned windows, and projecting gabled bays;

* it retains a well-preserved suite of reception rooms in the same style, characterised by full-height panelling, heavy, carved mantelpieces, decorative plasterwork, and coffered ceilings; along with a large number of panelled doors and good quality fireplaces of varying designs throughout the house;

* the two apsidal ponds and the small stone terrace flanked by statues in the south garden form an ensemble with the house that increases its aesthetic quality.

Historic interest:

* its plan form and decorative scheme survive well, illuminating the social and practical functions of a substantial house of the Edwardian period.

History

The present Cransford Hall was built around 1904, replacing two earlier residences on the site, the first called Cransford Hall Farm which was on the market in 1829 as part of the Great Glemham estate. The farmhouse was then rebuilt as a substantial house, described in an advertisement for the estate in ‘The Ipswich Journal’ (23 April 1836) as ‘the Manor of Cransford Hall, a genteel villa residence erected within the last three years’. A watercolour painted in 1852 by Thomas Churchyard (1798-1865) shows a two-storey, three-bay stone house with a hipped roof and square plan. This is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1883, set within formal grounds with a gardener’s cottage, a large square pond with a brick retaining wall, and a stable yard to the north-east.

In 1853 Cransford Hall was owned by Thomas Borrett who presumably left it to his eldest son George Borrett (1838-1892). After his death the estate passed to Thomas's second son Thomas Percy Borrett (1840-1913) who rebuilt the hall in 1904. The identity of any architect is unknown. The new Cransford Hall is in the Neo-Elizabethan style and substantially larger, as depicted on the third edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1927. This shows the rectangular plan of the house with formal gardens along the south front, including two apsidal ponds, low brick walls and flights of steps, and a glasshouse to the immediate east of the hall. To the north-east are the gardener’s cottage and large square pond shown on the OS map of 1883, but the earlier stable yard has been rebuilt with a long U-shaped stable. To the east of this is a walled garden with a central path running north-south, and two glasshouses along the north wall. A lodge is shown to the south, just off Bruisyard Road.

‘The Framlingham Weekly News’ from August 1910 gives a snapshot of a local occasion there: ‘By the kind invitation of Mr T. P. Borrett of Cransford Hall, the Bruisyard and Sweffling Branch of the Mothers' Union spent a most enjoyable afternoon on August 11th. The mothers partook of a bountiful tea on the lawn under the trees. [...] A stroll round the gardens, followed by a vote of thanks to Mrs Borrett ... brought a very delightful afternoon to a close.’

Cransford Hall was advertised for sale in ‘Country Life’ on 28 June 1946. It was described as an ‘attractive modern residence containing entrance, inner and lounge hall, 4 reception, boudoir, 7 principal and 5 servants’ bedrooms, four dressing rooms, five bathrooms. Lodge, garages, stabling, chauffeur’s flat, pleasure and kitchen gardens’, along with other buildings on an estate of 1,413 acres. The hall was bought by the Conservative politician Sir George Clements Hamilton, 1st Baronet Ilford (1877-1947), who was succeeded by his businessman son Sir Patrick Hamilton, 2nd Baronet (1908-1992). In 1959 Sir Patrick offered the house to the Thomas Mills High School, Framlingham, then the Mills Grammar School, who used it as a residential boarding house until 1982. During the refurbishments in the 1980s, a large amount of panelling was removed from the Hall (it was reclaimed for use in a neighbouring property), although there is no indication which rooms were previously panelled. Cransford Hall became a care home and, from around the turn of the C21, reverted to a private family residence.

The gardener’s cottage and the lodge have been extensively refurbished; the stable was converted for residential use at some point in the late C20; and the walled garden has been subject to alteration. None of these four buildings are therefore included in the listing.

Details

Large Neo-Elizabethan house built in 1904.

MATERIALS: red brick laid in a variation of English bond with stone dressings and a roof covering of small red clay tiles.

PLAN: the hall has a long rectangular plan, orientated east-west, with attached wall to the east, and two formal ponds and small terrace to the south.

EXTERIOR: Cransford Hall is a large house in the Neo-Elizabethan style, characterised by gabled bays, mullion windows, and tall, ornate chimney stacks. It has two storeys and an attic under a steeply pitched roof surmounted by numerous tall ridge stacks set at angles on square brick bases. The clustered square chimneys have oversailing brick cornices and circular clay pots. A moulded brick storey band runs across at first-floor sill level. The fenestration consists of recessed stone mullion and transom windows, of six or eight lights, with ovolo mouldings and glazing bars in the upper panes. The windows have stone sills, moulded brick lintels and scalloped external sash boxes.

The long asymmetrical south front, overlooking the formal gardens, is seven window bays wide, with eight-light mullion windows on the ground and first floors. There are four alternating projecting gabled bays which are lit on the attic level by three-light mullion windows. The gables have stone coping and ball finials. Between the first and third projecting bays is a canted loggia with a stone balustrade and two wide round-arched openings, originally open but now infilled with a door and windows. In between the projecting bays, the attic is lit by three-light dormer windows with glazing bars, under hipped roofs with wooden dentilled eaves. The second projecting bay has a double-height canted bay window, lit on the front face by a six-light mullion, and on the two side faces by two-light mullions.

The left (west) return consists of two bays. The first is a gabled bay lit on the ground floor by a six-light mullion, on the first floor by two four-light mullions, and on the attic floor by a two-light mullion. The second bay has a double-height canted bay window of the same design as that on the south elevation. To the right of this, on the second floor, a door has been inserted. The right (east) gable end of the house has two projecting, three-storey gabled bays.

The long asymmetrical north elevation is six window bays wide and has two storeys, an attic and a basement. The composition and detailing is similar to that on the south elevation, with three alternating projecting gabled bays, and mullioned windows with varying numbers of lights. The third projecting bay contains the (off-centre) main entrance from which residents and guests would arrive and depart in carriages kept in the stable yard to the north-east. The nine-panel door, approached via a flight of steps, is under a recessed porch within a large round-arched stone surround. This has a panelled soffit, a keystone, and an entablature supported by attached square columns enriched with strapwork. Above this, in between the first and second floor windows, are three diamond stone plaques; the largest central plaque bearing the initials ‘TPB’ (Thomas Percy Borrett), flanked by two smaller plaques with ‘19’ and ‘04’ respectively. To the right, the end bay is dominated by a projecting chimneybreast. Attached to this corner of the house is a tall square brick pier surmounted by a stone finial, which is one of a pair that provides an entrance to the formal gardens laid out to the south and west.

On the far left of the north elevation is a one-storey, flat-roofed projection with a crenelated parapet and a depressed Tudor arch stone entrance to the service end of the hall. Adjoining this and running westwards is a high, stepped brick wall, punctuated by square brick piers surmounted by pyramidal caps. None of the structures adjoining the wall on the north and south sides are included in the listing.

INTERIOR: Cransford Hall has a double-pile plan in which rooms are laid out along the south side overlooking the formal gardens and along the north side with views over the more rural grounds. The reception rooms are at the west end and the service rooms occupy the east end. The linear entrance hall runs the width of the house with doors on the north and south fronts, and five principal reception rooms arranged on either side: two drawing rooms in the north-west and south-west corners; and on the other side of the hall, a third drawing room to the south-east, a staircase hall to the north-east, and a dining room to the east.

The internal treatment of the reception rooms is predominantly in the Jacobean style, characterised by wooden panelling, elaborate fireplaces, panelled doors in prominent door surrounds, and moulded plasterwork friezes, wall and ceiling borders. The vast majority of the joinery (which is mostly unpainted) and plasterwork remains in its original state, along with the ornate window ironmongery, brass door furniture, and radiators positioned under the window seats.

The hall has a raised and fielded panelled dado with large (painted) panels above, and is divided into two areas by a pair of detached Tuscan columns with entasis. The six-panelled doors are set in doorcases with fluted pilasters and a dentilled cornice. The hall has a servants’ bell indicator box which has been re-sited from its original position in the servants’ quarters. In the north-west corner is the original WC with a wooden lavatory seat, grey marble basin surround, and terrazzo floor. The north-west drawing room has full-height square panelling incorporating pilasters and a mantelpiece with stone bolection moulded fireplace. A plaster frieze is embellished with strapwork, and the ceiling is divided by moulded beams into panels edged with raised plasterwork. The south-west drawing room is in a delicate, early C18 style. The plastered walls have moulded frames to suggest panels, horizontal ones below the dado and vertical ones above; and a moulded plaster frieze with swags and a dentilled cornice. The Adamesque mantelpiece has flanking fluted Ionic columns, and the elaborate doorcase has an entablature supported by consoles and enriched with classical decoration, including egg-and-dart. The dining room has full-height panelling with pilasters, a coffered ceiling with heavy moulded beams, and a very large Jacobean-style chimneypiece with a stone bolection moulded fireplace and Delft tiles lining the insets and hearth. In the staircase hall, the large wooden mantelpiece is flanked by full-height, square, attached columns; and the beams of the coffered ceiling are decorated with delicate plasterwork. The open well staircase has a quarter pace landing, panelled dado, square panelled newel posts, and shaped balusters rising from a closed string. It is lit by a large window incorporating small stained-glass heraldic ovals bearing the initials of the original owner.

The other rooms in the west end of the house, probably used as studies or business rooms, are much less elaborate but all have a wooden fireplace, mostly in the classical style, with grates and tiled surrounds and hearths, some of which are Delft. The service rooms have been subject to the most alteration but retain simple panelled doors, the recess for a kitchen range, and some wall tiling.

The decorative treatment of the first-floor bedrooms is fairly simple in comparison to the reception rooms, consisting mainly of six-panel doors, dado rails and some moulded ceiling cornices. Almost all the bedrooms retain a painted wooden fireplace, some in a delicate classical style, and some with Delft tiles. The servants’ bedrooms in the attic also retain small but decorative painted fireplaces with grates.

Four structures attached to the wall that extends from the north-east corner of Cranford Hall are excluded from the listing; the two brick lean-to storage sheds on the north side of the wall, and the two outbuildings on the south side of the wall. The wall Itself is included in the listing.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES

In the formal gardens on the south side of Cransford Hall are two large apsidal ponds edged in stone (replaced in 2024/25). To the south of the ponds is a small stone terrace defined on one side by a semi-circular brick wall of three courses, capped with a row of headers, and flanked by low square piers. These are surmounted by statues of classically-inspired figures.

Sources

Books and journals
Bettley, J, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk: East (2015),

Websites
Bonhams - Lot 136 , accessed 3 July 2023 from https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/11166/lot/136/
Country Life - Cransford Hall , accessed 27 November 2024 from https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/a-spectacular-and-sprawling-mansion-in-suffolk-and-its-completely-free-of-listed-status-253067

End of official list entry

Print the official list entry