Lawshall Hall

The original manor house on the site of Lawshall Hall dates from at least the eleventh century when it belonged to Ramsey Abbey at Ramsey. An agreement was drawn up between the Abbot of Ramsey and William Herberd in 1269 that required Herberd to provide for the widow of Alexander Hemning, the tenant of Lawshall Hall, and her two sons. Herberd was to "maintain the sons and land in as good or better state than when he first had access to the wife of Alexander". After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534 the Manor of Lawshall, including Lawshall Hall, was granted to John Rither for 13 years and then in 1547 was sold to Sir William Drury. The Drurys of Hawstead were a very important…

Lawshall Hall is a mid-sixteenth-century red brick house with some blue brick diapering, built on a T-shaped plan, with the older wing extending north-west. The house may have been part of an old monastery and has massive brick walls approximately six feet thick in places. Part of the original wall is apparent at the north-west end of the front wing, with two small, stone-framed windows and a Tudor arched doorway. The house has been greatly altered and was refronted on the south-west elevation in the nineteenth century with three-window range of double-hung sashes. The north-east wing has some original mullioned and transomed windows but has been partly blocked. The roof was tiled in the…