Coldham Hall

Coldham Hall stands in the gentle Suffolk countryside east of Lawshall village. A large Tudor manor built in 1574 for Sir Robert Rookwood, it is a Grade I listed house with a two-storey brick front and a long gallery above. The great hall still shows its original oak beams, while a Roman Catholic chapel added around 1770 has delicate plasterwork. Service rooms at the north end and rear windows date from mid-19th-century changes. The house was restored in the 1980s after standing empty for decades. The Rookwood family owned the estate for nearly three hundred years until 1869. Ambrose Rookwood, a Gunpowder Plot conspirator, lived here before his execution in 1605. The family kept the Catholic faith alive through two chapels and hidden priest holes. After passing through several owners, the estate became a shooting ground under Lieutenant Colonel Henry Trafford-Rawson. Colonel Everard Hambro bought it in 1918 and lived there until 1952. Visitors approach along a tree-lined drive that crosses two small lakes before reaching the house. A public footpath runs beside the grounds, giving distant views of the red-brick mansion. The surrounding parkland still shows the woodland belts planted by Colonel Trafford-Rawson. A mile to the south a local legend speaks of a tunnel once linking Coldham Hall to Lawshall Hall. The estate’s cricket and football clubs once used a field near the entrance, and Guy Fawkes Night fireworks continue to mark the Rookwoods’ history.