House and Grounds

HAUGHLEY PARK HOUSE AND GROUNDS

Barn History| Park and Garden| The Woods| Opening Times

House History:

The house was built in 1620 and the barn probably soon after, on land that had been a natural heath hunting ground once belonging to the Dukes of Suffolk. It had been granted to a prominent local family, the Sulyards, for services rendered to the Catholic cause by the Tudor Queen Mary.

The soil is thin and sandy with seams of flint-bearing clay. Not much good for farming which is why it has remained as park and woodland. Excellent, however for building materials. The bricks would have been made on site, the flints used in the garden walls, the sand mixed to form the decorative render facings to the windows and pediments and the timber for roofs and beams.

The east front remains as built, but a fire in about 1815 led to the rebuilding of the north end in the ‘modern’ Georgian style. While the present owners, the Williams family, were restoring the house in 1961, another fire gutted the north half but left the outside walls intact, thanks to lime mortar bonding and timber beams. Some of the gable-tops had to be rebuilt in the second restoration then, and the interior was replicated, including a fine oak staircase. In the southern end of the house, now used as offices for John Rannoch Foods, is an original oak panelled ‘Justice Room’ identified as the work of itinerant carpenters who created similar rooms elsewhere including St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Barn History:

The Barn buildings were in agricultural use until 1964 and in a very dilapidated condition until restored in 1977. The Main Barn with its massive mellow brick walls and fine oak and elm roof is original apart from one beam, a few new windows, and the roof being lined and thatch replaced with pantiles. The Stable end may well predate it as some of the posts and beams are of 15^th Century origin , but it was common then to reuse good house timbers in lower status farm buildings, so it is a puzzle as to which came first. The Supper Room was a ventilated woodshed and fairly typical of farm building from the 17^th to the late 18^th century. When Alfred Williams restored it in 1977 he simply made a warm, safe, usable space of what was there. No new buildings were added, but as the Barn became more popular in an area not blessed with attractive venues, he and his son, Robert, have converted some of the cart sheds that form the courtyard behind the barn into a toilet wing, caterer’s kitchen and stores which meet full health and safety and fire regs.

Facilities for disabled access are adequate but better is planned for the near future. The Barn was listed Grade 2 in 1988.

Park and Gardens:

Most parks were not created until the latter half of the 18^th century. Here there was no need for a Capability Brown and probably no money, but nature has provided a gentle undulating landscape enclosed by mature woods through which to approach the house and now the Barn too. Barn hirers have the use of the approach lawns, laurel walks, the mound and the fishpond.

The house gardens were replanted in the 1960’s on the existing plan of mid-Victorian times, with a main lawn bordered by shrubs and trees including a 1000 year old hollow oak and with reputedly the largest Magnolia in Suffolk in the middle. A sunken garden lies alongside and a small Italian paved garden and a large walled kitchen garden adjacent to the house, the latter re-planned along Edwardian lines in the mid-1990’s.. The carriage turn and round lawn in front of the house figure in all old sketches and engravings and are typical of a 17^th century approach.

The Woods

A short walk from behind the house leads to Woolpit Woods. One version of the story of the ‘Green Children’ of Woolpit (possibly the origin of the Babes in the Wood) has them emerging from these woods onto Woolpit heath at harvest time. They are certainly very old woodland as the 20-odd acres of Bluebells there demonstrates. Two long rides of Rhododendron were planted in the 19^th century and more recently a variety of decorative trees and shrubs have created a Woodland Garden in the first 30 acres. The further West Woods were badly damaged in the 1987 gales and it is now interesting to observe the results of different methods of coping. Some areas were cleared and replanted, some were left to regenerate from stumps to form coppice and some have been left without any intervention. There is also an area of undamaged and unmanaged natural woodland.

Opening Times:

The Gardens and Woods are open to the public from 2.00 to 5.30pm every Tuesday from the beginning of May till the end of September. The Gardens, Woods and barn are open on two ‘Bluebell Sundays’ (also 2.00 to 5.30pm), always the last Sunday in April and the first Sunday in May - all proceeds from the Blubell Sundays go to Wetherden Church. (£3 adults, children and HHA member free).