Gedding Hall (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Gedding.
In the historic county of Suffolk.
Modern Authority of Suffolk.
1974 county of Suffolk.
Medieval County of Suffolk.

OS Map Grid Reference: TL95385857
Latitude 52.19076° Longitude 0.85713°

Gedding Hall has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

Early C16 gatehouse, with small circular gunports, formerly part of a moated manor house, incorporated into a house of 1897. A series of four connected fishponds lie east of the house. The gatehouse is reached via a C19 wooden bridge over the moat. The first manor house on the site is believed to have been built in 1273 and rebuilt in C15. (PastScape)

Moat. Large, square, circa 75m x 80m, arms circa 10m wide. E and S arms wet, remainder dry and 2.5m deep. W portion of S arm re-cut in recent times. Drawbridge in S arm. Series of four fish ponds to E, fed by stream to the S, a sluice ditch connects the moat to the ponds. Occupied, C16 gatehouse, brick house restored in 1897. Moat said to have been built first in 1273 for Sir John de Geddynge and was rebuilt in C15 by the Chamberlayne family (Pevsner). Possible traces of earlier enclosure in front of hall. Isolated, circa 130m from parish boundary, 450m from church. Gedding belonged to the Chamberlain family by the early C15. The family's period of greatest power and wealth was under Sir Robert Chamberlain (circa 1435-1491), a leading Yorkist who fell from grace under Henry VII and was beheaded in 1491. He must be a strong contender to be the builder of the gatehouse and perhaps of the whole moated complex. If so the building must be placed in the 1480's, roughly contemporary with Oxburgh and Shelton Halls in Norfolk, and like them it is likely to have had a courtyard plan. (Suffolk HER)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1032593
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 384959.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) GDD 001.

Books
- Pevsner, N., 1961, Buildings of England: Suffolk (London, Penguin) p. 207
  Dickinson, P.G.M., 1957, Little Guide to Suffolk p. 170
  Wall, 1911, in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Suffolk Vol. 1 p. 609 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Kenyon, J.R., 1981 'Early Artillery Fortifications in England and Wales: a Preliminary Survey and Re-appraisal' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 138 p. 227
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Cole, M.A., 1993, Gedding Hall Resistivity survey for Suffolk Archaeological Unit online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio