Hengrave Hall
Hengrave Hall is a Grade I listed[1] Tudor manor house in Hengrave near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, England and was the seat of the Kitson and Gage families 1525–1887. Both families were Roman Catholic recusants.
Hengrave Hall
1525-1538
David Hugh Harris
Hengrave Hall
14 July 1955
Stable Block 20 Yards West of Hengrave Hall
2 September 1983
Connections[edit]
On July 5, 1553, Mary I stopped briefly at Hengrave Hall on her way to Framlingham Castle, the home of Margaret Bourchier, née Donnington, Countess of Bath, widow of Sir Thomas Kitson and Sir Richard Long, and her third husband John Bourchier, Earl of Bath, who were loyal supporters of the Queen.[3] (The Queen's father Henry VIII was godfather to Margaret's son Henry Long from her 2nd marriage. Elizabeth I stayed at Hengrave from 27 to 30 August 1578 and a chamber is named in her honour. The madrigalist John Wilbye was employed by the Kitsons at Hengrave and in London, as was the composer Edward Johnson.[4]
During the Stour Valley anti-popery riots of 1642, Sir William Spring, Penelope Darcy's cousin, was ordered by Parliament to search the house, where it was thought arms for a Catholic insurrection were being stored.[5] The Jesuit William Wright was arrested at Hengrave Hall.
King James II visited Hengrave throughout the 1670s and attended the wedding of William Gage and Charlotte Bond in 1670. The lawyer and antiquarian John Gage was the brother of William Gage, 7th Baronet, and wrote 'The History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk' in 1822. It is said that the greengage was named after a tree first grown in England at Hengrave, but the tree was actually named after the Viscounts Gage of Firle, Sussex who were cousins of the Hengrave Gages.