Horstead Hall
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Horstead Hall: Country House in Norfolk, demolished 1950s.
The village of Horstead in the county of Norfolk is not short of country houses. Towards Norwich lie Horstead House and Heggatt Hall, while towards Buxton lies the Horstead Hall estate. The house lay in the middle of substabtial park. A seventeenth-century house stood here until 1835, when it was rebuilt in the Tudor style.
Owners included the Batcheler family (18th century), the Suffields and latterly the Birkbecks. Sir Edward Birkbeck entertained Prime Minister Lord Salisbury there in 1887. During World War Two the house was requisitioned by the War Office and used by a cipher unit, who put up numerous huts in the grounds.
The estate was sold in 1947, and the house came down soon after. Today part of the estate is used for quarrying. Substantial estate buildings survive, and I am told a part of the house remains, albeit in derelict condition. I have been unable to verify this, as the estate remains private property. A pipe organ from the house is in the church at Ashby St. Mary.
Sources----
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/64/a3023164.shtml
Norfolk Archives Service
Print of Horstead Hall in my Possession
Frequent visits to the area of the estate.
