Hill Hall, Theydon Mount (geograph 3375471)

Hill Hall is an Elizabethan mansion located in

Theydon Mount Theydon Mount is a village and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of the county of Essex, England. The village is notable for the Grade I listed Elizabethan mansion, Hill Hall. History The name "Theydon" is thought to mean 'valley wher ...

near

Epping Epping may refer to: Places Australia * Epping, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Epping railway station, Sydney * Electoral district of Epping, the corresponding seat in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly * Epping Forest, Kearns, a he ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, England. Although owned by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, the building consists of many private apartments. It is a grade I listed building. The importance of Hill Hall lies in two features. Firstly, it has some of the earliest classical decoration on any surviving building in Britain - the tiers of columns and friezes on the courtyard walls and the use of 'giant' column (that is, rising through two storeys) on the exterior facades. Secondly, the 1969 fire destroyed most of the interiors but not, miraculously, a series of wall paintings on the first floor completed more or less when the house was built in the late 16th century. There are an unusual survival of classically inspired mural paintings.

History

The house was originally built for Sir Thomas Smith during the reign of Elizabeth I to replace a 12th-century house on the same site. Construction was carried out over several intervals (1567-8, 1572–3) interspersed between Smith's stints as ambassador to France. The hall stands in 50 hectares (120 acres) of parkland designed by

Humphrey Repton Humphry Repton (21 April 1752 – 24 March 1818) was the last great English landscape designer of the eighteenth century, often regarded as the successor to Capability Brown; he also sowed the seeds of the more intricate and eclectic styles of ...

. The Smith, later Bowyer-Smyth, family remained in occupation until the mid 19th century. Hill Hall subsequently became a prisoner of war camp during World War 2. Pregnant women from the east end of London were also evacuated from London during the early part of World Ward II and babies were also born there. Later, Hill Hall became a women's prison until a fire in 1969. It has since become part of the Heritage Trust. Limited tours are available to see the internal period wall paintings described by Croft-Murray of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

as the most important survival of Elizabethan decorative figure painting in England. According to local legend, Hill Hall was once the site of a duel between seven brothers, for the hand of a beautiful girl. Every brother was killed. It is also allegedly the haunt of a phantom black dog.

References

External links

* Country houses in Essex Elizabethan architecture English Heritage sites in Essex Epping Forest District Grade I listed buildings in Essex Grade I listed houses Grade II listed parks and gardens in Essex Historic house museums in Essex Houses completed in 1575 {{Essex-struct-stub