Spains Hall

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Remains of 16th century walled gardens and fishponds, with mid 19th century additions, set in an early 19th century park for which Humphry Repton provided a plan.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Spains Hall is located in a rural setting just beyond the north-west edge of the village of Finchingfield which lies c 16km north-west of Braintree on the B1053. The c 17ha site is bounded to the south-west and north-west by small country lanes and to the south-east and north-east by farmland. The ground at Spains Hall slopes gently from north-west to south-east to the slight valley in which the fishponds are located.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The main entrance to Spains Hall is from midway along the south-west boundary. A small mid C19 single-storey lodge with decorative bargeboards stands on the south-west side of the road, opposite simple gate piers which mark the entrance to the park c 250m from the Hall. The drive curves north through the park to arrive at the gravelled forecourt below the south-west front. A second lodge, of similar design and date, is located at the north end of the south-west boundary, opposite a straight drive running north-east to the farm and service buildings north of the Hall, with a branch turning south-east to join the main drive in front of the Hall. Although the lodges are mid C19, the drives are earlier and appear in this position on an estate map of 1805. Repton's plan for the grounds included a realignment of the main drive, which was not executed.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Spains Hall (listed grade I) is a large red-brick Elizabethan mansion, with some plastered timber framing and decorative gables, roofed in handmade tiles of red clay. It is built in two storeys with attics, to a complex plan with wings extending south-east and north-east. The entrance porch on the south-west front is carried to the full height of the house and faces out over the park. William Kempe built Spains Hall in its present form in c 1585, incorporating within it an earlier moated manor house, and his nephew Robert further beautified it in 1637. Following a fire in 1768, the north-east wing was rebuilt by John Ruggles and at the beginning of the C19 John Adey Repton added a south-east wing.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

On the north-west side of the Hall are the remains of the north arm of the moat, spanned by a red-brick bridge but now dry and grassed over. This faces an open lawn beyond which, c 80m north-west of the Hall, stands the early C18 red-brick dovecote (listed grade II) beside the timber-framed and plastered coach house and stable block (listed grade II).

The main area of gardens lie to the south-east and north-east of the Hall. The garden enclosures to the north-east of the Hall are bounded partly by yew hedges and partly by brick walls, some of which date from the C16 (listed grade II) and are now (2000) mostly used as kitchen gardens (see below). The oldest section of wall runs north-east for c 85m from the north-east corner of the Hall. At the end of this wall stands a garden pavilion (listed grade II), known as the Prayer House since the early 1800s when it was remodelled and repointed but originally a C16 banqueting house. On the south-east side of the walled enclosures is a formal rose garden backed along its north-west boundary by a high early C19 red-brick wall, in the centre of which stands a thatched garden seat. The rose garden with its tall metal hoops may date from Repton's involvement in the gardens, since a watercolour by J A Repton, dated 1827, shows a rose garden with arches in roughly this position. The garden was however subject to a major remodelling in the late C19 (CL 1902). The rose garden faces south-west onto the main flower gardens laid in a parterre below the south-east front. Between the two stands a very mature cedar of Lebanon, thought by the owners to have been planted in 1670. The parterre below the south-east front is separated from the Hall by three shallow grass terraces and has a central axis focused on the string of ponds beyond the gardens. Its beds and borders are now (2000) simplified and filled with roses and mixed shrubs.

PARK

The c 15ha park at Spains Hall lies to the south-east and south-west of the Hall, which stands in the north-east corner of the site close to Spainshall Farm. It is dominated by a string of fishponds which are aligned on the south-east front of the Hall and run out to the south-east boundary of the park in a series of falls. Originally eight in number, including one created out of the southern arm of the Hall moat, the third and fourth (joined together in the early C19) and the eighth survive with water in, those in between surviving in outline and still connected by a trickle of water through the woodland which has invaded the area since the late C19. The original layout of the ponds is recorded on Thomas Pope's 1618 estate plan for William Kempe. At the beginning of the C19, possibly following Repton's suggestions for softening the formality (1808 sketch plan), the pond nearest the Hall was turned into a lawn and others given slightly more irregular shapes. By 1898 (OS) three of the fishponds survived, although the lower one was silting up, leaving the upper and lower lakes which survive today (2000) together with the outline of three others in between.

The park to the north-east of the ponds is bounded by dense woodland, called Rooke Wood and Marsh Wood on the 1618 survey but now (2000) known as The Warren. On the south-west side of the ponds the undulating ground is partly under grass and partly under arable, with a thin scatter of mature oak trees, most densely concentrated in the vicinity of the Hall. The boundary of this part of the park has changed little since the 1618 survey although its character was altered during the early C19, its present (2000) disposition being clear by 1834 (Tithe map). Apart from the re-routing of the main drive which was not executed, Humphry Repton's plan is more concerned with the treatment of the ponds and the gardens than the park.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The walled kitchen garden lies immediately to the north-east of the Hall. It is partly divided into two areas by the C16 wall and Prayer House described above. To the south-east of the Prayer House the ground is laid to lawn, with a yew-hedged swimming pool enclosure (1960s) in one corner. To the north of the Prayer House are box-edged borders within which fruit and vegetables are cultivated, together with a range of early C19 glasshouse bases restored in the late C20. This area is enclosed to the north-east by a curved C19 red-brick wall. Some of the enclosures on this side of the Hall have existed since the 1618 survey was completed although the uses to which they have been put have changed over time. The kitchen garden was located here at the beginning of the C19 when Repton made marginal notes on his 1808 plan advising an extension to the north-east, over what had previously been a hop-ground. The date of the walls in this area suggests that his advice was followed here.

REFERENCES

P Morant, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1763-1768)

Country Life, 11 (11 January 1902), pp 48-53; 172 (30 December 1982), pp 2076-2079; 173 (6 January 1983), pp 18-21

N Pevsner and E Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Essex (1979), pp 361-362

G Carter et al, Humphry Repton (1982), pp 151-152

E Freeman, The Ruggles of Spains Hall (1993)

M Aston (ed), Medieval fish, fisheries and fishponds in England, BAR Brit Ser 182 (1988)

J Ruggles Brise, Spains Hall, Finchingfield, Essex: a short history, guide leaflet, (nd)

Maps

T Pope, Survey of William Kempe's estate, 1618 (private collection)

Estate map, 1805 (Essex Record Office)

Tithe map for Finchingfield parish, 1834 (D/CT), (Essex Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1876

2nd edition published 1898

OS 25" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1898

Archival items

H Repton, Sketch for the suggested improvements, 1808 (private collection)

John Adey Repton, Watercolours, 1827 (private collection)

Amended: April 2002

Edited: September 2001