Taverham Hall School

In 1623, Augustin Sotherton of Ludham was offered the 3000 acres estate of Taverham. It remained within his family for over 300 years until the Rev'd John Nathaniel Micklethwait, a retired parson, inherited the estate through the female line of his family in 1850. Micklethwait decided to demolish the existing hall and engaged architect, David Brandon, to design a country house befitting a country gentleman. Brandon completed a neo-Jacobean mansion in 1858. The Micklethwaits had no children and subsequently, in 1901, the estate passed through the female line to the Rev'd F C Mills of Warwickshire. Having no desire to live in Norfolk, Mills leased the hall until 1921, when he decided to…