Somerleyton Estate

Somerleyton Hall, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 5QQ
www.somerleyton.co.uk

Explore Somerleyton

Somerleyton offers an unforgettable day out with plenty of activities in and around the Estate and Fritton Lake. For adults there are picnic areas, croquet, football, rounders, nine-hole golf course, fishing, horse-riding, rowing, swimming and guided boat trips on the lake. Should you wish to venture further afield we can also organise hot air-ballooning and river boating to sea via the River Waveney.

About the hall & gardens

Somerleyton Hall is widely regarded as one of the best examples of an archetypal Tudor-Jacobean mansion and one of the most beautiful stately homes in Britain whose rooms and gardens are open to the public.
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History of Somerleyton Hall

The grounds of Somerleyton Hall have been home to high status buildings since the post conquest Norman era. In 1240 the existing manorial Hall was rebuilt by Sir Peter Fitzosbert as a magnificent country house on the site of the original medieval Hall.

Four centuries later the house was further enlarged and restyled by John Wentworth and transformed into an archetypal East Anglian Tudor-Jacobean mansion.

The Hall’s final and most drastic alteration took place in 1843 under new ownership of a wealthy Victorian entrepreneur Samuel Morton Peto who hired John Thomas, Prince Albert’s favourite architect, to carry out extensive rebuilding.

Carved Caen stone was used to dress the exterior red brick of the original house, sumptuous materials utilised to embellish the interiors, paintings commissioned for the house and the parkland was completely transformed and redesigned.

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