Sawston Hall

Sawston Hall

This is a country house with origins in the late medieval period. The original manor house was reputedly burnt in 1553 by the Duke of Northumberland as a reprisal for the Huddleston family's hospitality to Mary, Queen of Scots on 6 July 1553. Sir John Huddleston (died 1557) and his son Sir Edmund Huddleston (died 1606) rebuilt the house, as recorded by dated stones in the courtyard marked 'IH 1557' and 'EH 1584'. The building materials included stone from Cambridge Castle, given as a gift by Queen Mary.

The house is constructed of limestone, ironstone and clunch rubble with Barnack limestone dressings. Nineteenth-century repairs introduced limestone dressings and some brick and tile work. The roofs are plain tiled with leaded valleys and flats. The structure has two storeys with attics.

The plan is centred on a courtyard. The original medieval hall range forms the north side, with a two-storey porched entrance and an oriel window. Completed wings from 1584 connect this to the south range (built 1553-1557), which contains a gallery and a distinctive pentagonal stair turret. The south range also features a priest's hole within this turret built by Nicholas Owen, along with three other priest holes of exceptional design. A private chapel in the south range was registered for public worship in 1791.

The north elevation displays the main hall range of four bays with original medieval chequered masonry rising to attic level. The flanking wings each contain two bays and feature gabled parapets. A moulded band runs between the ground and first floors and caps the plinth, continuing across the projecting gabled porch and oriel. A nineteenth-century Jacobean revival archway (replacing an eighteenth-century archway) marks the entrance porch. The windows are restored, with hollow-chamfered and chamfered mullions and transoms; ground and first floor windows have multiple lights with moulded cornices. Dormer and attic windows contain two and three lights. Side stacks have been rebuilt or part-rebuilt with red brick octagonal shafts.

The interior retains significant features from its construction and alteration periods. A late fifteenth-century painted plank and muntin partition was rebuilt as an internal porch in the south range. Late sixteenth-century panelling, much of it relocated, survives in the great hall and chambers of the north range (sixteenth-century tapestries were temporarily removed and recorded by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England). The long gallery contains original fireplaces, including a notable late sixteenth-century fireplace in the hall featuring Ionic pilasters flanking a four-centred moulded stone arch, with a three-bay overmantel frieze and panels divided by short Ionic pilasters and consoles with acanthus decoration.

A late sixteenth-century stair turret contains solid oak steps and a central newel; a priest's hole lies in the attic of this turret and within the north wall of the south range. Three further priest holes are located in the south and east ranges. The staircase in the east range is late seventeenth-century, rebuilt in nineteenth-century Jacobean style. A sixteenth-century kitchen in the west wing retains two hearths, one incorporating a baking oven.

Late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century bolection-moulded panelling of two heights appears in the north-east room, with door frames in the staircase hall. An eighteenth-century vaulted cellar survives. Early to mid-eighteenth-century panelling, doors and a chimney piece are found in the north-west chamber.

The chapel features late eighteenth-century internal head-stopped drip moulds, flooring and a marble altar, together with nineteenth-century plaster imitation linen-fold panelling and stained glass including a window to John Digby, who was recently sanctified. A balustered gallery to a priest's room in the east range at mezzanine level includes a guardrobe and priest's hole above.

Eighteenth-century doors and architraves survive throughout, alongside mid-nineteenth-century doors, fittings, internal partitions, a rear passage and service rooms to the north range.

The hall remained in the ownership of the Huddleston family until circa 1975, when it was sold to the Cambridge Centre for Languages. During the Second World War, it served as the operational headquarters of the 66th Fighter Wing of the 2nd and 8th Air Force.

Alterations, rebuilding and extensions were carried out in the early eighteenth century and nineteenth century, with a major restoration undertaken between 1850 and 1861.