Hengrave Hall, “an embattled Manor-house, with Turrets of singular design and a Gate-House of acknowledged beauty”—is situate about two miles from the ancient and venerable town of Bury St. Edmunds.[38] The founder of the building was Sir Thomas Kytson, a wealthy cloth-merchant of London, by whom it was erected, between the years 1525 and 1538, probably upon the site of a mansion still older,—the ancient hall of the De Hemegraves. A brief history of the several families through whose hands the Manor has passed into those of its present possessor, Sir Thomas Gage, Bart., may interest the reader.[39]

In the reign of Edward the Confessor, it formed part of the territory of St. Edmund, by whose monks it was held at the Conquest. About the middle of the twelfth century it was granted by Anselm, the seventh Abbot, to “Leo and his heirs;” and by them was assumed the surname of Hemegrave. The De Hemegraves filled the highest offices in Suffolk for upwards of two centuries, when the race was extinct, and the estate became, by purchase, the property of the Hethes. In failure of male issue, it passed—in the nineteenth of Henry VI.—by purchase, to the Staffords. In 1522, consequent upon the attainder of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, it was sold to Sir Thomas Kytson, “citizen and mercer of London, otherwise called, Kytson the Merchant;” so he is styled in an Act of Parliament which confirmed him the purchaser of Hengrave.[40] He was succeeded by a posthumous son, who left no male issue; he had, however, three daughters, one of whom married Thomas Lord Darcy, created Viscount Colchester and Earl Rivers, and who, in right of his wife, became entitled to, and resided at, Hengrave. From her inherited a daughter, Penelope, who married Sir John Gage, Bart., of Firle, in Sussex.[41] In this family Hengrave has since continued; its present proprietor being Sir Thomas Gage, the eighth Baronet, born on the 20th of March, 1812.

The Mansion, which seems to have undergone very little change since its erection, and may be classed among the most unimpaired domestic structures of the kingdom, is of considerable size, “covering 18,500 square feet of ground,” although by the removal, in 1775, of a mass of building which projected at the east and north sides, together with a high Tower, it has been reduced one-third at least from its original extent. Several ancient family documents which still exist, and of which copies are given by Mr. Gage, inform us that the whole cost of the structure did not much exceed £3000.[42]

From these interesting documents we learn also that the Mansion at Hengrave was furnished with all necessaries from sources within its own boundaries—a mill, a forge, and a farm; a dovecote, a grange, a barn; a great and little park, a vineyard, an orchard, a hop-ground, and a hemp-ground. There were butts for the Archers, (“still visible in the upper part of the Park”); mews for the hawks, and kennels for the hounds. There was a bowling-green also; and the neighbouring ponds were well stocked with fish to divert the Angler and supply the “Fast-day meal.” The Inventory of household goods, taken in 1603, enumerates among other items, now familiar only to the Antiquary, “the Shovelboard,” a table for playing a fashionable game; of Armour, the “Almain Rivetts,” “the Privye Coats” of Mail; the “Jackes of Plate,” the “Mayle Gorgetts,” the “Spanish Burgenetts,” the “Dagges,” (short Hand-guns); “Snaphaunces,” (Firelocks,) Pethernells, (a kind of Harquebuss,) and Ptyzens, (Partizans,) both “ordinary and very fayre.” Of Musical Instruments, the Recorder, the Cornute, the Bandore, the Cittern, the Curtall, and the Lysarden—all “in ye chamber where ye Musicyons playe;” with books, “covered with parchment,” containing pavines, galliards, measures, levaultoes, corrantoes, and Italian fa-laes.

The beautiful and long-famous Gate-way of Hengrave Hall is pictured in the accompanying print. It is a splendid example of “Tudor magnificence;”—“of such singular beauty,” says Mr. Gough, “and in such high preservation, that, perhaps, a more elegant specimen of the Architecture of the age in which it was erected cannot now be seen.” We borrow our description of it from Mr. Gage. The structure has an arch obtusely pointed; in the spandrels appear the Kytson Crest,—a unicorn’s head erased. The space above is filled by a triple bay window, the domes of which are rich in scale work and crockets, and have basements or brackets elegantly terminated in pendant corbels; each square compartment in the lower division of the window contains a Shield, bearing the Arms of some member of the family of the founder. On the frieze below two of these Shields are these words:—

The battlements of the Gate-house, assuming the appearance of small gables, the points of which, crowned with richly carved hoop garlands and vanes, correspond with those of the triple dome below, give height to the whole, and complete the beauty and harmony of the design. The Inner Court of fine masonry, embattled, appears in its original state; and is distinguished by the bay window of the Hall on the north side. The interior of the Mansion has little of its primitive character; but “the florid style of architecture which prevailed, is still conspicuous in the fair tracery, pendant, and spandrels of the bay window,” which retains its early beauty. Of the number and variety of the apartments at Hengrave, and of the splendid luxury of its domestic arrangements, some judgment may be formed from the “Inventory,” dated 1603, of which Mr. Gage prints a copy. Here we read of the Queen’s Chamber, the Chiefe Chamber, the Great Chamber, the Armoury, the Gallery at the Tower, the Dyning Chamber, the Chapell Chamber, the Chamber in which the muscycions playe, and a host of others—all magnificently furnished. The Great Chamber was hung with eight large pieces of fine arras—“parke worke with great beasts and fowls, 160 yards;” the cheyres and stooles were covered with coloured clothe of silver; the carpetts were of Turkeye worke. The Dyning Chamber had its tapestrye—“of the story of Danea.” The Wynter Parlor, its “pfuming frame of brasse” and “chesse boorde, w?? men to it.” To the furniture of the Armoury and the Musicians’ Chamber we have adverted. The contents of the “Sadler’s Shopp,” however, denotes more pointedly the wealth and luxury of the family. The saddles were of sumptuous character—“layed with gould lace;” “fringed with gould and silke;” “embroidered with goulde and purle;” and so forth.

Towards the close of the last century, the Mansion was the abode of a sisterhood of expatriated nuns. They belonged to the English Convent of Austin Nuns at Bruges, and obtained an asylum here by the generosity of Sir Thomas Gage, himself a Roman Catholic. They subsequently returned to France; but the mortal remains of many of the persecuted Sisters lie in the Churchyard of Hengrave—among others, those of their Abbess, the venerable Mary More, one of the heirs-general, and the last lineal descendant, in the paternal line, of the great Chancellor, Sir Thomas More.

Hengrave Church is very close to the Hall, and would appear, indeed, to have been originally attached to it. It has

long ceased to be used for the purpose of worship, but is kept in repair as the Burial-place of the family. It is of small structure, built of the materials common to sacred edifices in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk—rough flint, with cement and free-stone in the battlements, parapets, groins, buttresses, windows, and arches. The round Tower, indicated in the accompanying print, is curious, and of remote antiquity. Its external aspect is peculiarly venerable, covered with Ivy-trees, the growth of centuries. The interior where, it is said, no religious service has been performed since the Reformation, the family having adhered, through all changes, to the old faith, is without pews, and contains many richly-sculptured Monuments. Among them is a superb Tomb of marble and coloured free-stone, to the memory of Margaret, Countess of Bath, and her three husbands; the first of whom was Sir Thomas Kytson—the citizen-founder of Hengrave—who died September 13th, 1545, aged 55 years. The other principal Tombs are in memory of Sir Thomas Kytson, the younger; Sir Thomas Darcy; the Bourchiers, Earls of Bath; the Cornwallys; and the Gages.

Altogether, there are few of the Baronial Mansions of England so little spoiled by time—so comparatively uninjured by modern taste and injudicious improvement. Hengrave Hall is “a fair and, in some respects, a unique example of the domestic architecture of the period of its erection.”