Manor Houses of Hadleigh
In general, a Manor was the dwelling of a feudal lord, and if the lord was the owner of several manors, he only inhabited it occasionally. Sometimes an administrator or seneschal was appointed to control and manage the stately property. The ordinary administration was delegated to a bailiff or a reeve. Below is the building on the site of the Medieval Hadleigh Manor, the Manor itself long gone; however I read that the medieval core is still evident in the current interior. There were four other lesser Manors in Hadleigh and I attach images of three of the current buildings on their sites. The fourth one is now demolished and the site is empty.
Hadleigh Hall School - On the site of Hadleigh Manor House
The medieval Manor House was built around 1297. There would certainly have been a Manor house on the site in the C10 and definitely before the Norman Conquest. It`s possible before that even, in the time of Guthrum (c880-890).
Aethelstan or Guthrum as we know him, was the Danish King of Danelaw, the area under Danish law, had Hadleigh as one his royal towns and it is reputed that he was buried within the vicinity of the current St Mary`s Church. Who knows, perhaps he even lived in a hall on the site?
The first documented lord had been ealdorman Byrhtnoth – killed at the Battle of Maldon in 991 as he and Anglo-Saxon forces tried to repel Viking invaders. Ealdorman was the highest rank of noble and just before his death he was the most senior ealdorman in the country to King Aelthelred.
Byrhtnoth and his wife had no children, “so he bequeathed his many lands to churches or religious institutions around the country”.
The manor of Hadleigh, along with those of Lawling in Essex and Monks Eleigh in
Suffolk, were among those given to the Priory Church of Canterbury Cathedral. It made Hadleigh an “archiepiscopal peculiar” – under the direct control of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is how it remained until 1838. The rectory was in the archbishop's personal gift and several incumbents became bishops.
The present building was built in the C17, much of the original and perhaps earlier work remains obscured by later renovations and additions. The present front is C19 red brick with stone dressings. It is a two storeys building with a tall one storey wing to left, and modern wing to right
The Hall, and the adjoining Brett Works factory site, had been bought as bankrupt stock by George Price in 1929. George Price was a natural entrepreneur: the elder son of an Enfield carpet and textile trader, he developed the Hadleigh branch of E H Price into a successful small business making rugs and carpets at what we all know as Brett Works. The Brett Works became an important source of employment and George Price a pillar of the Hadleigh community.
However, in 1949, his wife Ruth Price, put the Sunday roast in the oven at Hadleigh Hall, went off to Chapel, where she died of a stroke.
Hadleigh Hall was now too big for George Price to live in alone. He spent the rest of his life with his widowed daughter, Ione, first at Bradfield House Hotel, near Manningtree, then at Hillmorton House in Lavenham. So what was to be done with Hadleigh Hall?
The idea of a school was an obvious solution. So George Price and Leslie Widdicombe began Hadleigh Hall School to serve the evident needs of local professional people, and starting with just 18 pupils, in September 1949. The school’s first years were intimately associated with his family.
Leslie Widdicombe, brother to his son-in-law and one of his salesman at Brett Works, was well placed to run a school. Before selling carpets, he had been a teacher himself; and his father had been the distinguished Senior Tutor and Bursar at Downing College, Cambridge.
So George Price and Leslie Widdicombe began Hadleigh Hall School to serve the evident needs of local professional people. The old stables were converted into classrooms; suitable toilets were built, desks and chairs arrived. Each child had to bring a shoe-bag, to hang in the corridor beside the telephone. The uniform for girls was grey flannel pinafore dress in winter, blue and white striped or checked cotton frocks in summer.
The School flourished in the 1960s, many families sending all their children there in succession, in 1967, Leslie Widdicombe ended his relationship with the school, which was sold to the incumbent headmaster and closed, insolvent, in 1973.
Toppesfield Manor House - now Toppesfield Hall, one of the lesser Manors
Just a limited view of the rear of Toppesfield Hall from across the river.
This 18th century building, built on the site of its predecessor, was re-fronted and re furbished in the 19th century and is now divided into two house.
In the 1360s, another famous name Sir William Clopton who was Lord of Toppesfield Manor, is recorded in Hadleigh Manor records to be in default of rent and failure to attend the obligatory Hadleigh Manor court. I assume the rent arrears were for land leased from the Manor of Hadleigh. Hadleigh Manor being the primary Manor.
Peyton Hall Farm, believed to be on the site of the original Manor House
The current building is probably of Cl6/17 origin. It`s a 2 storey timber framed and plastered building, with a tiled roof,and looks as if at the moment it is a farm house. It has a cross wing at the west end and a small additional wing on the south-west corner. It has a large central chimney stack. Obviously much restore from the C16/17.
The official listing goes something like this: Probably C16/17, 2 storey timber framed and plastered with roofs tiled. L-shaped with modern brick extending on the east. Upper storey projects on whole of west front and windows are mainly 3-light casement. Said to be seat of D'Oyly family circa C16.
However, it has a lot of other history including one infamous owner called John Harvey, leader of the East Anglian smugglers called the Hadleigh Gang.
The Hadleigh Gang, so we are told, was part of a highly organised body of smugglers operating the Suffolk coastline,. They specialised in the running of tea and other dry goods in the 18th century.
In 1735 it came to light that a "little house at Seymor near Hadleigh", was being used and a force of Customs Officers supported by Dragoons raided the place. They found a large quantity of contraband tea which they took away to the George Inn at Hadleigh for the night. In the morning the smugglers numbering about 20 cut-throats overpowered the small party of Customs Officers accompanied by four Dragoons just outside Hadleigh and recovered the tea. We are told that two smugglers named as John Wilson and John Biggs were later hanged for this incident in which a Dragoon was killed and others of the party were wounded.
One of the leaders of the gang was apparently a John Harvey of Pond Hall who was finally brought to trial and sentenced to be transported for seven years.
Lastly, there was Cosford Hall. This one we only have an approximate location, which is to the side of Stone Street, Hadleigh. It was an early C17 building but no longer exists.
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