St Peter'S Hall

St Peter's Hall is a manor house located on a moated site in South Elmham. It dates primarily to the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, although it likely incorporates an earlier core. The house has a two-story, L-shaped form; the main range runs east-west, and a rear wing extends north-south. Construction is primarily in ashlar stone, with sections of rendered flint rubble, brick, and render over timber-framing, all under plain tile roofs.

The building's south front features a projecting stone chimney stack and another stack with two square red brick shafts, incorporating moulded bases, forming part of the west gable. A significant feature is a series of medieval, 3-light stone-traceried windows, which are not original to their current positions; these are believed to have been taken from the now-dissolved Augustinian nunnery at Flixton. The main entrance is through a storied porch on the north side, with a pointed arched doorway featuring multiple mouldings, a 4-light traceried window above, and diagonal buttresses. The porch roof's pitch was raised in the 19th century. Reused stone panels with flushwork decoration, including a crowned sacred monogram and ‘M’, are found around the base of the porch and along the eastern half of the north front. A blocked doorway indicates a possible earlier core to the west of the porch.

Inside, a cross-entry leads to further evidence of reused stonework. The former hall, originally divided into two rooms by a large chimney stack inserted in the late 16th century, has been restored to a single room with a raised ceiling, and the original external stack reopened, revealing a Tudor arch with multiple mouldings. To the west of the entry, a large upper room, with heavy moulded cross-beams and 16th-century square panelling, was later subdivided. This section may have originally possessed a flat, lead-covered roof, but the current roof is a 19th-century replacement. The roof over the eastern half of the front was replaced in the 17th century, featuring 5 bays with two rows of stepped butt purlins, deep, narrow chamfered principals, and rafters in two separate lengths tenoned into the lower purlins. Some reused medieval rafters are present around the chimney stack.

The timber-framed north-south wing, an early 17th-century addition, primarily contains service rooms. Further information regarding the house's history and owners can be found in Nesta Evans’ 'The Tasburghs of South Elmham'.