Ditchingham Hall

Ditchingham Hall is a country house built around 1715 for Reverend John Bedingfeld and extended in 1910. It is constructed of mauve brick with red brick dressings and features hipped slate roofs with plain tiles on the rear slopes. The building is two storeys with attics and has a U-shaped plan.

The south facade contains seven bays, with the central three bays slightly advanced beneath a pediment. The windows are sashes with glazing bars and louvred shutters, with sunken apron panels below. Keyed gauged brick arches span the openings, their keystones reflected in the moulded string course at first floor level. The central doorway is framed by Corinthian pilasters supporting a segmental pediment with dentil ornament, which interrupts the first floor string course. The central first floor window has a raised and eared moulded brick surround with head-keystone, resting on short brick pilasters. A modillion eaves cornice runs along the roofline. The pediment typanum contains a cartouche with arms and festoons. Four pedimented attic dormers sit above. Two square panelled chimney stacks with moulded caps are symmetrically placed. A 20th-century swept serpentine garden wall is attached to the south-west corner.

The west facade was enlarged from five to nine bays in 1910 for William Carr. It features sashes with glazing bars set beneath gauged arches with keystones and a moulded string course at first floor level. The central doorway comprises a six-panel two-leaf door with rectangular fanlight, set within a stone door surround with architrave decorated with bead and foliage. Angle pilasters with consoles support a segmental pediment containing a cartouche and leaf ornament. Below the pediment runs a frieze of foliage with a ram's head. The central first floor window is set in an eared brick architrave with head-keystone, echoing the south facade. A steep pediment crowns the centre three bays and contains a circular window with glazing bars, moulded surround with scroll-keystones, and festoons of flowers and foliage. A modillion eaves cornice with additional carved brackets below the pediment ornaments the roofline. Four pedimented attic dormers and two 20th-century roof windows light the upper storey. A panelled chimney stack sits on the ridge line north of the pediment. The rear of the Edwardian range has two blind first floor openings above which rises a large panelled and scrolled chimney stack. A segmental two-storey bow with steep hipped roof projects from this elevation, featuring three curved first floor sashes with glazing bars. String course and eaves cornice continue around from the west facade. The north wall contains a central six-panel door with rectangular fanlight and moulded architrave supporting a pediment on a pulvinated frieze. Two tall semicircular-headed windows with glazing bars and two pedimented dormers light this elevation. A one-bay return on the east side connects to a single-storey service range to the north, a 20th-century remodelling with slated pyramid roof behind a parapet.

The east facade contains six bays with detailing repeated from the south and west elevations. One ground floor sash has been replaced by a tall glazed door, and one first floor window is blind. Three pedimented attic dormers rise above. At the north-west corner stands an attached 20th-century garden wall with panelled piers and ball finials. Seventeenth-century wrought iron gates, painted and gilded, have been re-used from Staunton Harold in Northamptonshire.

The interior contains a good 18th-century stair with three turned balusters per tread and carved tread ends.