The grand, sprawling Otley Hall has fascinating history – including panelling which once adorned Carinal Wolsey's chambers at Hampton Court. Penny Churchill reports.
Historic Otley Hall, near Woodbridge, is described by Pevsner as ‘perhaps the outstanding Tudor House in east Suffolk’ and, grandly, by Simon Jenkins, in his England’s Thousand Best Houses, as ‘an immaculate Tudor house with no edge untrimmed and no dust on any shelf. A cobweb would be an arachnoid impertinence’.
Today a well-organised family home with all the comforts that modern technology allows, the 8,200sq ft brick masterpiece retains the aura of a high-status manor house that has survived largely unchanged for some 550 years. It’s now for sale through Savills and Jackson-Stops at a guide price of £2.25m for a home set in about 10 acres of ‘magical’ gardens, parkland and woodland.
The hall offers four main reception rooms, a minstrels’ gallery, a large kitchen/breakfast room, five principal bedrooms, four attic bedrooms, four bath/shower rooms and a self-contained flat.
Highlights include the impressive Great Hall, with its screens passage, and the parlour, with its exquisite linenfold panelling, believed to have come from Cardinal Wolsey’s chambers at Hampton Court Palace.
A 1,930sq ft traditional timber barn and former stables have been converted to a multi-purpose function room and party barn. Combined with numerous promotional activities, the hosting of dinners, conferences and concerts and the use of the manor as a successful wedding venue.
This helps to generate a sizeable income that contributes towards the maintenance and running costs of the property. Legal opinion suggests that the activities of Otley Hall Events demonstrate a clear commercial use — arguably sufficient to justify a ‘mixed-use’ classification of the property for Stamp Duty purposes.
Otley Hall is for sale at £2.25 million via Savills and Jackson-Stops – see more pictures and details.
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