Building record MTN 100 - Foxboro' Hall

Foxboro’ Hall is a substantial country house in its own park at the western edge of Melton parish, approximately 1 km north-west of the village centre. It lies on high ground commanding fine views of the Deben estuary and Woodbridge to the south. The building has been much extended and altered, which explains its listing at grade II rather than II*, but its original architectural details are typical of the Regency period and documentary evidence suggests it was built on virgin soil between 1813 and 1819. These details include finely reeded door surrounds, fireplaces and cornices. Its tall central bay, capped with a pediment, is an unusual feature that was designed to exploit the view and supports the opinion of his biographer that the house was designed by Perry Nursey, a local landscape painter and architect who numbered John Constable and Edward Fitzgerald among his friends – in addition to William Whincopp for whom it was built. The remarkable Greek Revival portico which impressed Pevsner is conspicuous by its absence from photographs taken during WWI when the property served as a Red Cross hospital and may be a later addition or reconstruction. The 19th century building consisted of only the central three bays with a single-storied kitchen and service range to the east, as illustrated by the same photographs, but was dramatically extended in the early 1920s by Major William Pitt Miller who added the bays on each side. He also built a new upper storey on the service range, more than doubling the total number of bedrooms, and replaced almost every window in the house. The main staircase was also renewed between 1902 and 1925, along with the rear porch, but the Regency service stair survives with a stick balustrade and moulded mahogany hand rail. During the mid-19th century a series of narrow lean-to storage sheds was added to the north of the service range, abutting the high boundary wall of the stable yard. In the 1920s this wall and sheds were incorporated into a new two-storied wing with a self-contained staff flat on its upper floor. The same wing was much altered again in the 1950s or 60s when a new staircase and external door were inserted. With the exception of a small area of brickwork belonging to the lean-to sheds, the changes now proposed will affect only these 20th century features and will have no significant impact on the historic integrity of the house as a whole (S1).