Building record HNV 038 - 16th century Stables, Hengrave Hall

Lodgings for Hengrave Hall Conference Centre, formerly stables. Early or mid- C16. 2 storeys, a long range with various gabled projections, and at the north end mid-C20 alterations and extensions. Butt bricks; some red brick walling perhaps incorporated from an earlier structure. Parapet gables with stone ball finials; some stepped buttresses up to eaves height. Plain tiled roofs with C19 red brick chimneys having diagonally-set square shafts. 2-storey west entrance porch with C16 1st floor window, and boarded entrance door with rectangular fanlight. Linked to the building at the north end a laundry block, c.1900, one storey, red brick walls and plain tiled roof; central ridge. Ventilation louvre with pyramid roof and surmounting weathervane. Cruciform casements. Central open gabled entrance porch on brick plinth, with turned balusters in the Elizabethan style (S1).

NW of the house is the converted former stable block - a 2-storeyed brick range of C16 date with modern alterations and extensions. `Planchyng of the stabyll' mentioned in 1528 (S2), shown on maps of 1588, 1742 (with a tower at the N end and adjacent to `the Tower Yard') and 1769 (adjacent to `Stable Yard')(S3).

2001: Surviving building accounts and a study of the construction of Hengrave Hall and its Stable Block have established that building of much of the existing complex took place during the period AD 1525-36. Dendrochronological analysis of the timbers in various parts of the buildings concur with this overall date range, but the lack of sapwood on datable timbers meant that it was not possible to resolve issues of the sequence of building of the various parts. A single timber in the Queen Elizabeth Room had a felling date in the spring-summer of AD 1536, suggesting that this area was amongst the last areas to be roofed. There is dendrochronological evidence that some individual timbers in the roof over the Queen Elizabeth Room and in the Stable Block were reused. The Stable Block and Gatehouse Range, stylistically very similar and possibly contemporaneous, provide the earliest dated examples of the use of on-edge joists. The site chronology produced provides additional dendrochronological data for Suffolk, which is currently under-represented compared with much of the rest of England. The site chronology matches well with other sites, especially from the neighbouring counties of Norfolk and Essex (S4).