Sudbury Hall

In 1086, following the Norman Conquest, the manor of Sudbury was listed in the Domesday Book. The Vernon family came to Sudbury as a result of the 16th-century marriage of the Sudbury heiress Ellen Montgomery to Sir John Vernon (d.1545), a son of Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. The present house at Sudbury was built shortly after the restoration of King Charles II, between 1660 and 1680 by George Vernon, grandfather of George Venables-Vernon, 1st Baron Vernon. By the late 19th century, the extent of the Sudbury Estate stretched from Cubley down to Marchington in Staffordshire. In 1916, George Venables-Vernon, 8th Baron Vernon, died aged 26 in Malta from an illness contracted…

Sudbury Hall dates from the Restoration era, but George Vernon's building is based on a Jacobean design, with its ornate Great Staircase and Long Gallery. Notably, the state rooms are located on the west side of the building and the servants' quarters on the east side, a traditional layout preferred by Tudor architects. The house is a two-storey red brick building fronted with a Baroque main entrance porch, with two levels of paired columns, each surmounted with a pediment. The carvings above the porch were sculpted by William Wilson.