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Oxburgh Hall - Oxburgh, Norfolk (NT) Oxburgh Hall was built during the final quarter of the fifteenth century, when the Wars of the Roses were at their height. Sir Edmund Bedingfeld, who had inherited the site at Oxburgh, decided to move his traditional family seat at Bedingfeld in east Suffolk to Oxburgh and build a grand house there in the latest style. The resulting mellow brickwork we still see today was an up and coming building material, requiring great skill on behalf of the brick-makers and builders as well as great wealth on the part of the owner. Any large undertaking of this kind required the permission of the current king and the official 'licence to crenellate' granted by Edward IV in 1482 can be seen on display in the King's Room, along with other ancient documents.
As with any building that has been occupied for as long as Oxburgh, alterations and adaptations have been made over the centuries, but the overwhelming impression is of continuity and much remains as it was when first completed. The first sight of the Hall, through the walled garden, presents a perfect medieval moated manor house, entered through a semi-fortified gatehouse. The defenses at Oxburgh were always more for show than real protection - the large central windows in the gatehouse lit up the principal rooms for the lord and lady, but would not have been much use against attack. It was these rooms which became the King's and Queen's rooms in 1487 when the new King Henry VII and his Yorkist wife Elizabeth came to stay. Having played a canny game during the preceding war, Sir Edmund found himself in favour, but unhappily had died the previous year. His son, Thomas, grew up under royal patronage and accompanied Henry VIII on his state visit to France in 1520, where he was present at the famous meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold. His brother, Edmund, also inherited Oxburgh and had the somewhat dubious honour of becoming the Steward and Comptroller of Catherine of Aragon's household at Kimbolton Castle after her enforced divorce from the king. He also organised her funeral procession to Peterborough Cathedral.
Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Edmund's son, remained a devout Catholic during the turbulent years of Queens Mary and Elizabeth and the priest's hole at Oxburgh, off the gatehouse's remarkable brickwork staircase, was used to hide away priests or fellow believers at a time when they were outlawed. It remains an interesting part of both the fabric of the building and its social history. The gatehouse leads into a central courtyard, enclosed by a square of small rooms, now linked by corridors, but originally separate apartments, with several entrance staircases. On the south side was the original Great Hall, with its traditional screens passage and connecting buttery, pantry and large medieval kitchen. From an eighteenth century description of this area, we know that the Hall had an oak hammerbeam roof and was 54 feet long. In 1775, the south range was demolished and the Saloon added in the fashionable neo-classical style. Not until 1863 was the linking passageway added to once again complete the square.
During the Civil War, the Catholic Bedingfelds sided with the King and Oxburgh was badly damaged and deserted. On the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the family was once again in favour, although the continuing taxes and exclusions from University and Parliament of Catholics meant that funds were never in great supply. Successive owners did their best with restoring the house, notably the third baronet, Sir Henry Arundell Bedingfeld, who rebuilt the south-east wing and modernised the Great Hall. His son made more substantial alterations, including the demolition of the Great Hall, but achieved the re-roofing with Dutch tiles and built the Saloon block. Also during this period, Oxburgh Hall acquired the wonderful 'Marian Hangings' - large pieces of needlework by Mary, Queen of Scots and her warder's wife, the Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick. As at Hardwick Hall, where Bess's skill is also on display, the charming needlework pictures are a delightful exhibition of design and the natural world as seen through Tudor eyes (the stoat and the rhinoceros were some of our favourites). His grandson married into money and at last major repairs could be undertaken in the first half of the nineteenth century. By this time, medievalism and reverence for older buildings had come into vogue and in 1830, by employing a sensitive architect in John Chessell Buckler, Oxburgh became the fine house we see today. The crenellated parapet all round the roof was added, in the style of the genuinely medieval gatehouse battlements and the picturesque barleytwist chimneys added a new dimension. Windows were modernised and added and a new tower on the south-east corner was built in 1860. Inside, the library was created, probably from two original rooms and decorative schemes in medieval and Tudor styles introduced everywhere. By using a mixture of original Jacobean and contemporary wooden carvings, Oxburgh became a Victorian ideal of the medieval manor house that it actually started out as five hundred yeas before.
Now owned by the National Trust, Oxburgh Hall is a very pleasant place to visit, with a small walled garden, parterre and Chapel in the immediate grounds. Just beside the car park is the fascinating church of St. John the Evangelist, a large part of which collapsed in 1948. This Perpendicular church houses various monuments of the Bedingfeld family including the truly unusual huge terracotta Renaissance monuments. Similar fortified and moated houses of interest: Baddesley Clinton |
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Back to the Home Page of the UK Heritage collection. This information has been researched and published here by: Jonathan & Clare |
