Somerleyton

Somerleyton
Suffolk
The mooring sited on the River Waveney
Location
Grid reference:	TM485974
Location:	52°31’4"N, 1°39’41"E
Data
Post town:	Lowestoft
Postcode:	NR32
Local Government
Council:	East Suffolk

Somerleyton Hall

Somerleyton is a village and ancient parish in Suffolk, adjacent to the border with Norfolk, marked here by the River Waveney. It is centred 4½ miles north-west of Lowestoft and six miles south-west of Great Yarmouth. The land associated with the village is partly in The Broads National Park including its free moorings and marina on the Waveney close to its public house. Somerleyton is in the civil parish of Somerleyton, Ashby and Herringfleet which maintains a village hall elsewhere and cricket ground and tennis court in the village. Other amenities include a village shop and a railway station.

Many of the houses consist of the model village built around a green that from mediæval times until the 20th century belonged to Somerleyton Hall, whose key owners have been the Jernegan family, Sir Morton Peto and the Lords Somerleyton. The latter were philanthropists with industrial wealth — a major infrastructure engineer/railway developer and family founded in carpet manufacturing respectively. The hall is a house significantly open to the paying public, and the estate of 5,000 acres surrounds the village and the attractions at Fritton Decoy. The hall's façades, paintings, reception rooms and grounds are a display of wealth and artisanry, including a yew hedge maze and features to the gardens from across Europe. The 1843-built three-storey mansion with loggia and square belvedere tower has been critically acclaimed as "an Anglo-Italian architecture masterpiece".

Its isolated church in a nearby field has seven stained-glass windows depicting models of devotion, a fifteenth-century tower and twelve low mediæval panels which have survived the Reformation (break from the Catholic Church) to be re-incorporated into an elaborate rood screen — an ornate pierced framework spanning the building between the chancel and the nave.

Its industrial history centres on a former brickworks and the commercial boatyard run by Christopher Cockerell during his invention of the hovercraft commemorated by a round column monument built in 2010.

Shops and public house

The village has a County Primary school and a thatched combined post office and village shop. Somerleyton railway station on the Norwich to Lowestoft line is on a dog-leg half-mile road from the heart of the village. The foot of the village street — which is near flat — has the village's pub, The Duke's Head.

History

Somerleyton is described in the Domesday Book under the name of Sumerledetuna.

St Mary's Church, Somerleyton

Somerleyton Hall was established in 1240 and has been home to Admiral Sir Thomas Allin and Samuel Morton Peto, who oversaw the latest rebuilding in 1843. Peto also had the ancient Parish Church of St Mary rebuilt in 1854 but retaining many historic features including the 15th century tower; it is a Grade-II* listed building, the middle of the three categories. This isolated church in a nearby field has seven stained glass depicting wise and serene figures and the twelve low panels of its mediæval rood screen are finely painted. It mirros in style and content that at Ranworth, Norfolk. From left to right, the saints are Michael, Edmund, Apollonia, Laurence, Faith, Thomas of Canterbury, Anne, Andrew, John, Mary Magdalene, Felix, Petronilla, Stephen, Dorothy, Edward the Confessor and George.

The Hovercraft Column is by the main road between St Olaves and Lowestoft near the edge of the parish

Somerleyton was the home of Christopher Cockerell while he invented the hovercraft in his post-war career founding in Somerleyton a boatyard and hire business Ripplecraft — cabin cruisers for hire serving holidaymakers cruising the Norfolk Broads. Unveiled in 2010 the Hovercraft Column commemorates Cockerell's invention during this time. The Waveney runs runs west of Somerleyton giving access to the Broads and a rail swing bridge crosses the river in the south-west. This can be viewed from the end of the un-metalled lane starting south of the 'Duke's Head'.

A small brickworks in the village produced bricks such as for the building of Liverpool Street station before closing circa 1947. Ruins are beside the track which leads from Brickfields Cottages to the railway station; its last remaining chimneys were demolished with dynamite in about 1959.

The village store, part of Waveney Co-operative Society and closed circa 1968, was adjacent to the village pond and operated a door-to-door delivery service for groceries via trade-bike and the milk delivery van. Along with the Crown pub opposite, both are now private houses, as is The Reading Room, which was provided for the use of residents with snooker table etc. until being closed and converted to a dwelling circa 1968.

Somerleyton Gardens as they appeared in 1930

A memorial to two airmen killed in a friendly fire incident during World War II is on Waddling Way, an un-metalled road east of the village which runs to Flixton, near Blundeston. The aircraft was an RAF Mosquito nightfighter being flown by two young airmen of the United States Navy. On 14 November 1944, British anti-aircraft fire mistakenly shot them down. They were chasing an air-launched V1 flying bomb.

In literature and television

Main article: Somerleyton Hall

The BBC's Antiques Roadshow took place at Somerleyton Hall in 2009, with selected excerpts to form its standard one-hour broadcast in 2010. The roadshow provides free-to-the-public expert valuations and takes place at a small number of popular British country houses each year. The broadcaster has published on its website a panorama of some features of the estate.

References

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Somerleyton)