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Sheringham Hall:
Historical Building of Norfolk, England
Image right - Sheringham Hall, 2018
Image © C June Barnes - own work
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- Type of Building: two storeys with a low pitched slate roof
- Condition: Early C19 hall Inhabited Hiuse
- Location: nr Upper Sheringham, Norfolk
- Category: Grade II*
- List Entry Number: 1001020
- Date Listed: 18-Sep-1987
- Canmore ID-
- Coordinates Latitude: 52.9357 Longitude: 1.17402
- OS Grid Coordinates: TG1308742141
- When Built: Between 1598-1608
- Architect: Humphry Repton and his son John Adey Repton
- Built for/by: for Abbot and Charlotte Upcher
- Owned by:
History
The current hall at Sheringham park was built close to the site of an earlier Jacobean style hall, which was demolished, that had stood some 600 meters east of today’s hall. This house stood in a smaller estate and was owned by Flower’s Family who were an influential family from the Sheringham area. Records show that a Cook Flowers ["British History online - Sheringham". Paragraph 11 reference to the three lords of the manor including Cook Flowers. University of London & History of Parliament Trust. 2014.] was one of three lords of the manor in Sheringham. In 1792 Cook Flower bought the previous house. It was Cook Flower who began to landscape and plant the woodland on the hilltops around the house leaving the rolling pastures below as arable farmland.
Abbot Upche, the son of Peter and Elizabeth Upcher of Ormesby St Michael married Charlotte Wilson and they had a son Henry Ramey Upcher and a daughter Charlotte Mary. The family needed was a larger house and in 1811 he purchased the estate and the existing manor house owned by Cook Flower at Sheringham, for £52,000.
Humphry Repton concentrated on the Landscaping whilst his son, John Adey Repton was in charge of the design and construction of the new hall.
Two years after Upcher bought the property work began on the new hall on the 2 July 1812. By this time Humphry Repton had begun to recover from a carriage accident which had left him disabled and confined to a bath chair. He increasingly relied on his son for the day-to-day running of the contract. One of the first scheduled job was to construct a new track (Now known as the Back Drive) down to the coast road which would be necessary to transport all the building materials to the estate. The Gault bricks for the face brickwork of the hall where from Lincolnshire and were brought to Norfolk by sea. Other materials arrived by train to nearby Weybourne and Sheringham stations and hauled to site along the new road. Other building materials used on the new hall were reclamations from local sources, including Oak retrieved from a wrecked ship at Blakeney and other timber from a local demolished granary.
The Repton’s employed a clerk of works to oversee the job on the recommendation of Abbot Upcher. He had been the master of a local workhouse and although Upcher admired the man's diligence and enthusiastic attitude, this did not make up for his inexperience in the building trade. Upcher allowed the clerk to have the wooden arch centres which had been used to form the cellar, removed prematurely. This was done at a time when there had been torrential rain in the area for several days. The removal of the arch Centring's caused the collapse of the cellar ceiling throwing progress back quite considerably. The construction of the house ran simultaneously with the landscaping of the estate.
Abbot and his wife Charlotte moved into the Flower’s old farmhouse close to the village of Upper Sheringham while the house was being built. By 1817 the house was nearing completion and the family hoped to move into the hall by the summer of that year. In March 1818 Humphrey Repton died as a consequence of the ill health caused by his carriage accident. in February 1819 Abbot Upcher died aged 35 of an illness that had been a problem for many years. The house was all but finished, but his wife Charlotte had lost interest in the new house and stayed in the old farmhouse. Work was stopped on the house and it remained empty and unfinished until Abbot and Charlotte’s son Henry Ramey Upcher married and he finished the hall and moved in with his family in 1839. Charlotte had remained in the farmhouse and dedicated herself to the village wellbeing, the church and to her family. She was also instrumental in the inauguration of Sheringham’s first lifeboat, the Augusta.
Henry lived in the hall with his wife Caroline Morris and his 11 children. He died on the 30 March 1892 leaving the hall to his eldest son Henry Morris Upcher, and his wife Maria. Henry was instrumental in the development of Sheringham town and spent time and money promoting the seaside resort. He also became the High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1899 and was elected alderman to the County Council in 1901. Henry had seven children and he left the hall to his eldest son Sir Henry Edward Sparke Upcher; from 1941 until 1950 he was Chairmen of Norfolk County Council. Sir Henry died in 1954 and left his estate to his only child, Henry Thomas Simpson Upcher who went by the name Thomas. It was Thomas who completed Humphrey Repton’s design for the estate when he erected a Temple in the park. This had always been included in Repton’s original red book scheme for the estate. The Temple was built in 1975, 160 years after it was first envisaged by Repton. Thomas Upcher had it built to celebrate his seventieth birthday in a slightly different position to Repton’s original specification. It commands the views of the estate and surrounding countryside as intended by Repton. Thomas Upcher died in 1985. He was a bachelor and had no heir to leave the house and estate to. In 1986 the National Trust bought the estate and opened it up to the general public. The hall is not open to the public and is leased out to private tenants.
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