Walls Of Walled Garden, Gateways, Orangery And Gymnasium Circa 40 Yards North Of Bawdsey Manor

Walls of walled garden, gateways, orangery and gymnasium, approximately 40 yards north of Bawdsey Manor

This complex of garden buildings dates to around 1900 and comprises walls enclosing a rectangular garden, a conservatory, an orangery, a gymnasium, and associated gateways. The structures are built in red random bond brick with ashlar dressings.

The southern wall of the enclosure features regularly spaced pilaster buttresses to the right of centre, topped with ashlar caps and coping and a stone string course. At the centre is a gateway with an ashlar surround framing a rectangular opening with rounded corners. A moulded band frames this opening, flanked by debased Corinthian pilasters with plain shafts on plinths. Above is a panelled frieze with an overthrow of Flamboyant and Art Nouveau influence, decorated with large-scale crockets on tendrils forming an arched surround to a cartouche with a central oval boss. Pinnacles with foliate decoration stand at either side. Double wrought-iron gates hang between the pilasters, featuring a fixed upper panel with a shell motif at centre and S and C-scrolls at either side. The gates themselves display spearhead decoration with scrolls above and below the lock rails, forming the dogbars and suspended from the top rail with S and C scrolls to the lock rail panel.

The north wall carries a timber and glass conservatory with a metal-framed roof at its centre.

To the left of the main gateway stands a gymnasium, possibly originally a squash court, with blank brick walls to its lower section and regularly spaced buttresses which die back via offsets. Two gabled paired dormers appear on each long side and one on each end wall. A copper domed cupola crowns the ridge. The eastern wall features a large semi-circular bench niche to its eastern side, flanked by piers with flat ashlar caps. Regularly spaced buttresses with two offsets each flank this niche.

The orangery displays classical design with a southern facade of five symmetrically disposed bays divided by fluted Roman Doric pilasters with moulded caps and bases supporting an entablature with triglyphs and guttae. The wider central bay originally held double doors of two by five panes, which were lying on the ground at the time of resurvey in 1987. Panels of one by five panes stand to either side, with a round-arched fanlight above. The lateral bays contain round-headed windows of three by five panes falling to ground level, with a horizontal glazed panel above each. Two similar bays appear on the left side, cut across by a diagonal beam marking the roof line of a glazed forcing wall which originally adjoined this side but is now demolished. Four plain bays occupy the right hand side. The entablature originally bore urns above the pilasters, now removed. The western wall features a gateway at its northern end without piers. A spur wall extends in line with the northern wall towards the east beyond the enclosure, with a further ashlar gateway featuring pilaster buttresses and ramped walling at either side. This gateway, which appears to have been brought from elsewhere, has panelled pilasters flanking a round-headed arch, with fluted square panels to the centre and at either side, and a richly moulded cornice above. A broken pediment surmounts this, with a finial at the centre and a similar flanking pinnacle at right.

The orangery is badly dilapidated. Its design is based on that at Hintelsham Hall, which house the Quilters also owned. The Gardener's Cottage adjoins to the left.