Seventeenth century brick house, Great Holland Hall, Hall Farm, Great Holland (EHER 80447)

A 17th century brick-built house, with 18th and 19th century alterations, located within the historic setting of the Grade II listed Church of All Saints. The house was tenanted by the Hicks family for most of the 19th century, who are responsible for many of the alterations to the building.

April 2022. Heritage assessment. A 17th century brick-built house, with 18th and 19th century alterations, located within the historic setting of the Grade II listed Church of All Saints. The earliest map evidence for the Hall is the 1777 Chapman and Andre map of Great Holland, but a more precise date for the main building's construction can only be narrowed down the 17th century by the nature of the brickwork when viewed from inside the building. The main range of the building has a typically Georgian layout with a central entrance hall and staircase with opposite dining and drawing rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms over at the first-floor level. The 1838 Tithe Apportionments named the Naval Knights of Windsor, as the owners of the Hall and its lands, and Charles Hicks as the tenant farmer. The Naval Knights of Windsor was an institution founded in 1724 by MP Samuel Travers to 'accommodate and maintain seven impoverished or injured naval lieutenants that were single men, without children and inclined to live a virtuous, studious and devout life'. <1> Great Hall farm was purchased by the institution to provide the knights with an annual income, although there is some dispute as to whether Travers may have owned the manor and Hall Farm himself. Nonetheless, the Hicks family was resident at Hall Farm until the late 1890s. Lillian Hicks, wife to Charles, and her daughter Amy Hicks were well-known suffragettes. The 1838 Tithe Map also shows that the Hall was significantly extended with additions to the East, West and South, between 1777 and 1838. Under the Hicks family, several of these extensions were demolished and the frontage was reoriented to the South. <1>