Bredfield House (or White House as it was also known) was a now-demolished country house situated in the village of Bredfield, around 2 miles north of Woodbridge,

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...

, England, United Kingdom. It was a Jacobean building and was traditionally the seat of the Jenney family. The White House, Bredfield, Suffolk postcard c

The White House, Bredfield, Suffolk postcard c

History

In the 17th century Bredfield belonged to the Marryot family, who built the house. It passed to the Jenney family in 1683 by the marriage of Dorothy, daughter and co-heiress of Robert Marryott, to Edmund, the second son of Sir Robert Jenney. A later Edmund Jenney was High Sheriff of Suffolk for 1740. The house is best known as the birthplace Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883), who went on to translate the Rubàiyàt of Omar Khayyàm. Edward's father, John Fitzgerald, had rented it in 1801 from the Jenneys on his marriage to Edward's mother. Edward described it in his poem of 1839, ''Bredfield Hall'' which starts thus: :"Lo, an English mansion founded :In the elder James's reign, :Quaint and stately, and surrounded :With a pastoral domain." Fitzgerald described the house as overlooking Hollesley Bay at the time when Horatio Nelson anchored there in 1801. It was also described elsewhere as somewhat gaunt and charmless, but in a good park with gardens and ponds and fine stables and kennels. Bredfield House was severely damaged by a V-1 flying bomb during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and has since been completely demolished. In 1984 the park was described as desolate and overgrown, with conifers indicating where the house once stood.

References

External links

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British Towns and Villages. Photograph of house dated circa 1907
{{coord, 52, 6, 51, N, 1, 18, 32, E, type:landmark, display=title Grade II listed buildings in Suffolk Country houses in Suffolk Suffolk Coastal British country houses destroyed in the 20th century