Pond Hall (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Le Ponde; Plessis

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

OS Map Grid Reference: TM051418
Latitude 52.03720° Longitude 0.98986°

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

There are no visible remains.

Description

Helming Legette, constable of Windsor Castle, obtained a licence to empark his manor of Pond Hall in 1369 and two years later to raise the status of his house by embattlement.

Site of moat, crenallated manor house & chapel in manor of Pond Hall (Domesday manor of Lafham?). Pond Hall had an estate of 639 acres in 1369. A licence to crenellate 'Le Pond Hall in Hadleigh" was granted in 1371 to Helming Legat. Passed, by marriage, to D'Oyly family in 1390s (until beginning of C18th). In C15th John D'Oyley obtained a grant (from Archbishop of Canterbury) for a family chapel at Pond Hall.
Existing building may date back to mid C15th but no trace of Legat's buildings so possibly existing replaced earlier structure or it was at another location.
A sketch map of circa 1800 shows Pond Hall surrounded on three sides by a huge moat, which had largely gone by 1839. Details of house, manor and park in Andrews (2005). (Suffolk HER)

A Royal licence to crenellate was granted in 1371 March 1 (Click on the date for details of this licence.).

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) HAD 078.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Pond Hall
Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (Shown on map of fortified houses of East Anglia)
  Martin, Edward, 1999 (3edn), 'Medieval Castles' in Dymond, David and Martin, Edward (eds) An Historical Atlas of Suffolk (Lavenham) p. 58-9
  Copinger, W.A., 1909, Manors of Suffolk Vol. 3 p. 159-63 online copy
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 417 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Andrews, S. and Hoppitt, R., 2011, 'Helming Leget, Royal Servant, and a possible designed landscape at Pond Hall, Hadleigh' Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History Vol. 42.3 p. 300-324 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1914, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward III (1370-74) Vol. 15 p. 54 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Andrews, S., 2005, Following the deer: in search of Pond Hall Park, Hadleigh, Suffolk (Held by Suffolk HER)

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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.
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