Melton Hall is a grand and impressive home in Suffolk. Penny Churchill takes a look.
In east Suffolk, Jonathan Penn of Jackson-Stops in Ipswich quotes a guide price of £3m for elegant, Grade II-listed Melton Hall at Melton, a small village on the north bank of the River Deben, a mile north-east of the popular market town of Woodbridge, at the edge of the Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB.
One of Melton’s grander houses, built of Suffolk white brick under a shallow-pitched slate roof and set in 7½ acres of parkland to the north of the village, the present house was erected by John Wood the Elder in 1807, to replace an earlier, 16th-century one destroyed by fire.
Melton Hall combines a convenient and accessible village location with a country-house outlook, all within walking distance of Woodbridge. It offers 7,767sq ft of well-proportioned and well-organised accommodation, including central reception and inner halls, four reception rooms, a kitchen and breakfast room, nine bedrooms and four bath- or shower rooms and a second-floor games rooms and studio, plus service rooms and cellars.
Lovely gardens include a magnificent walled rose garden, a kitchen garden, woodland and meadow, together with a tennis court and swimming pool.
According to a history of Melton Hall compiled by the current vendors, Colin and Cindy de la Rue, the Wood family lived at Melton Hall for 400 years, from the time that Richard Wood, youngest son of the Earl of Halifax, moved to Suffolk and built the first hall.
The family remained there until 1936, when the 92-acre Melton Hall estate, comprising a ‘fine Georgian Residence, 12 bed and dressing rooms, two bathrooms and… 88 acres of valuable building land’ was offered for sale by John D. Wood & Co. The house was bought with 17 acres by retired Indian Army colonel Monty Wace and his wife, Maude, with the rest of the estate broken up and sold, mainly for development.
In 1958, Melton Hall, little altered since it was built, was acquired by Paul Dixon, a successful young architect, who modernised the house, fitting new heating and plumbing, converting the coach house to garages with a two-bedroom flat above, and installing the glass-covered swimming pool.
The Dixons were succeeded by Welsh-born Judge Bertrand Richards, who was posted to Suffolk as Recorder of Ipswich Crown Court in 1971 and bought Melton Hall the following year. In 1995, five years before he died, Judge Richards sold the hall to the incumbents, whose cherished family home it has been ever since.
Melton Hall is for sale at £3m via Jackson-Stops.
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