In 1240 a manor house was built on the site of Somerleyton Hall[citation needed] by Sir Peter Fitzosbert, whose daughter married into the Jernegan family. The male line of the Fitzosberts ended, and the Jernegans held the estate until 1604. In 1604 John Wentworth bought the estate. He transformed Somerleyton Hall into a typical East Anglian Tudor-Jacobean mansion. It then passed to the Garney family. The next owner was AdmiralSir Thomas Allin, a native of Lowestoft. He took part in the Battle of Lowestoft (1665) and the Battle of Solebay at Southwold in 1672. Eventually, the male line of that family also died out.
In 1843 Somerleyton Hall and Park were bought by the prosperous entrepreneur and MP Samuel Morton Peto. For the next seven years he carried out extensive rebuilding, creating an Anglo-Italian architecture masterpiece.[1] Paintings were specially commissioned for the house, and the gardens and grounds were completely redesigned. Peto had garden features designed by William Andrews Nesfield and Joseph Paxton. Peto's son, Harold Peto, became a noted garden-designer, but it is not known whether he was influenced by the gardens of Somerleyton.
Landscaped park and formal gardens are also Grade II* listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[5] The formal gardens cover 12 acres (4.9 ha) and form part of the 5,000-acre (2,000 ha) estate (7.7 square miles). They feature a yew hedge maze, one of the finest in Britain, created by William Andrews Nesfield in 1846, and a ridge and furrow greenhouse designed by Joseph Paxton, the architect of The Crystal Palace.[6] There is also a walled garden, an aviary, a loggia and a 90-metre (300 ft) long pergola, covered with roses and wisteria. The more informal areas of the garden feature rhododendrons and azaleas and a fine collection of specimen trees. The kitchen garden and the stable court are both listed Grade II*.[7][8] The ridge and furrow glasshouses north of the kitchen garden are listed Grade II.[9] Several garden ornaments and statuary are listed; these include the statue of Atalanta, the group of four urns around the sundial, as well as the sundial, all are listed Grade II.[10][11] In the formal gardens, the four urns in the centre and the four stone troughs are both listed Grade II.[12][13] The remains of the Winter Garden and the boundary walling to the formal gardens are listed Grade II.[14][15] The cistern at the south of the terrace to and the retaining wall to the garden front are listed Grade II.[16][17] The screen wall to entrance front of the hall is Grade II listed.[18] The South Lodge and the gates to Somerleyton Hall are listed Grade II.[19]
Estate
Inspired by the success of Knepp Wildland, a pioneering rewilding project started by Sir Charles Burrell, 10th Baronet in West Sussex, Somerleyton has fenced and is rewilding 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the 5,000-acre (2,000 ha) estate (7.7 square miles), has introduced large black pigs, Exmoor ponies and 100 free-roaming cattle.[20] The plan is to extend the scheme to 1,000 acres (400 ha) (20% of the estate), including the 150 acres (61 ha) Fritton Lake and 600 acres (240 ha) Suffolk Sandlings.[21] Somerleyton is a founding trustee of WildEast, a charitable foundation that promotes regenerative farming and rewilding in the East Anglia.[20]
In popular culture
In 1998 Lord and Lady Somerleyton commissioned the English artist Jonathan Myles-Lea, a specialist in country houses, gardens and estates, to paint Somerleyton Hall.[22]
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