Witnesham Hall

Witnesham Hall is a former manor house that has been divided into two dwellings. It dates from the mid-16th century, with alterations likely made around 1614 for William Meadowe. The house was extended in the later 17th century and remodeled around 1842 for D.C. Meadows. It originally featured a three-cell cross-passage entrance plan and stands two storeys high with attics. The structure is timber-framed and was encased in red brick around 1842, although much of the rear wall still retains earlier plasterwork.

The building has a string course at the first floor level and another below the ground floor windows. It features pilaster-buttresses at the corners topped with ball finials, and embattled parapets that include dormers with Flemish gables. The roofs are plaintiled and have groups of two and three octagonal chimneys on moulded bases; most are from 1842, but there is a complete 17th-century stack on the left-hand gable. The windows are hood-moulded with splayed reveals and wood-mullioned and transomed casements, including a two-storey splayed bay of similar design.

A notable feature is the fine three-storey entrance porch from around 1614, made of red brick, located at the cross-passage entrance of the earlier house. It has a doorway with imposts and a semi-circular head, and above it is a limestone shield displaying the vulning pelicans of the Meadowe family. The porch is adorned with three tiers of brick pilasters capped by ball finials, and it includes a three-light mullioned window with a pediment above, as well as another at attic level. A Flemish gable features a 19th-century weathervane.

Inside, the inner doorway has the original plank door and an 18th-century fanlight. The cross-passage contains a mid-16th-century plank and muntin screen. The parlour features an arched plastered fireplace with an elaborately carved surround and overmantel. The staircase wing, added around 1600, has balustrading with carved splat-balusters and original ovolo-moulded mullioned windows with leaded glazing. In a later 17th-century rear wing, there is another fine carved fireplace surround. Witnesham Hall is also noted as the birthplace of William Kirby, an entomologist, in 1759.