Felbrigg Hall - Felbrigg, Cromer, Norfolk (EH)
The estate's history dates back to the middle ages when an offshoot of the great Norman family of Bigod took the name Felbrigg. Their manor house stood on the site of the present Hall, and it was they who built the parish church in the early 15th century.
In around 1450 Felbrigg was acquired by John Wyndham, a wealthy merchant from the Norfolk town of Wymondham. The estate passed through the generations more or less unchanged until 1621 when Thomas Windham (adopting the Norfolk spelling of the name) commissioned work lasting 3 years to rebuild the house. The Jacobean south front, which still survives, is the work of the master-mason Robert Lyminge, who was at the same time rebuilding another local property, Blickling, for Sir Henry Hobart.
Felbrigg Hall - West Wing
The west wing, pictured above, was added by Thomas's son, William Windham, in the 1680s. it was designed by William Samwell and contains some sumptuous plasterwork of the period.
His son Ashe built the orangery on this side of the house in 1705, and his grandson William Windham II commissioned James Paine and the plasterer Joseph Rose to remodel some of the 17th century rooms between 1749 and 1756. Gothic additions and modifications were made by his grandson, Vice-Admiral William Windham (nee Lukin) between 1824-25, when William employed W. J. Donthorn to reface Paine's service wing on the east, and to build a new stable courtyard.
Although Felbrigg escaped a major Victorian 'restoration' under his son, William Howe Windham, who redecorated and furnished the great hall, the Admiral's grandson, 'Mad Windham', practically ruined the estate and was finally forced to sell it in 1863, with all its contents, to John Ketton, a successful Norwich merchant. By coincidence, Ketton's daughter married Thomas Wyndham-Cremer, a distant cousin of 'Mad Windham' and a descendent of John Wyndham. Their grandson, Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, died in 1969, bequeathing Felbrigg with all its contents and its estate to the National Trust.