Layer Marney Tower is a Tudor palace, composed of buildings, gardens and parkland, dating from 1520 situated in

Layer Marney Layer Marney is a village and civil parish near to Tiptree, in the Colchester borough, in the county of Essex, England. Layer Marney has a Tudor palace called Layer Marney Tower and a church called Church of St Mary the Virgin. In 2001 the pop ...

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, between

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

and

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the River Blackwater, Essex, Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea ...

. The building was designated Grade I

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

in 1952.

History

Constructed in the first half of the reign of

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

, Layer Marney Tower is in many ways the apotheosis of the Tudor

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mo ...

, and is the tallest example in Britain. It is contemporaneous with East Barsham Manor in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

and

Sutton Place, Surrey Sutton Place, north-east of Guildford in Surrey, is a Grade I listed Tudor manor house built c. 1525 by Sir Richard Weston (d. 1541), courtier of Henry VIII. It is of great importance to art history in showing some of the earliest traces of ...

, with which latter building it shares the rare combination of brick and terracotta construction. The building is principally the creation of Henry 1st Lord Marney, who died in 1523, and his son

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, who continued the building work but died just two years later, leaving no male heirs to continue the family line or the construction. What was completed was the main range measuring some three hundred feet long, the principal gatehouse that is about eighty feet tall, an array of outbuildings, and a new church. The buildings suffered considerable damage from the Great English earthquake of 1884, and a subsequent report in ''

The Builder ''Building'' is one of the United Kingdom's oldest business-to-business magazines, launched as ''The Builder'' in 1843 by Joseph Aloysius Hansom – architect of Birmingham Town Hall and designer of the Hansom Cab. The journal was renamed ''Bu ...

'' magazine described the state of the house as such that ‘the outlay needed to restore the towers to anything like a sound and habitable condition would be so large that the chance of the work ever being done appears remote indeed’. The repairs were begun by brother and sister Alfred and Kezia Peache, who re-floored and re-roofed the gatehouse, as well as creating the garden to the south of the Tower. The next owner was Walter de Zoete who carried on and expanded the work, with a team of 13 domestic and 16 outside staff. He enlarged the gardens, built a folly known as the Tea House (converted to a self-catering holiday cottage in 1999), and converted the stables into a Long Gallery where he housed his collection of furniture, paintings and objets d’arts. As a consequence of all this work it would be fair to say that the interior owes more to the

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

aesthetic of Walter de Zoete than to the Marneys. Walter de Zoete lost money in the

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

stock market crash A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especia ...

, and sold the house to a Dr and Mrs Campbell. The house came to the present owners, the Charringtons, in 1959. Gerald and Susan Charrington had been married in Layer Marney church in 1957; two years later Mrs Campbell's executors put the house up for sale and the Charringtons purchased it. It has been occupied by the Charrington family ever since. The gardens are listed as Grade II on the English Heritage

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England The Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by Historic England ...

, while the building itself was designated Grade I in 1952. In 2012 the tower and gardens are open to the public from 1 April to 30 September for a small admission fee. The tower is also available for wedding ceremonies and receptions, as well as conferences. It has proved popular as a media location. Films and television programs which feature shots of Layer Marney Tower include '' Preaching to the Perverted,''

Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...

's ''

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus ...

,'' and ''

Lovejoy ''Lovejoy'' is a British television comedy-drama mystery series, based on the novels by John Grant under the pen name Jonathan Gash. The show, which ran to 71 episodes over six series, was originally broadcast on BBC1 between 10 January 19 ...

.'' In December 2011 the tower was the venue for BBC1's ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people (g ...

.''Antiques Roadshow, Layer Marney Tower 1 - Episode 12 of 28, Series 34
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References

External links

Official website

"Tea House (The), Near Colchester, Essex" at vivat-trust.org
{{coord, 51, 49, 21, N, 0, 47, 48, E, display=title, type:landmark Country houses in Essex Gardens in Essex Historic house museums in Essex Grade I listed buildings in Essex Houses completed in 1520 1520 establishments in England Brick Gothic Gothic architecture in England Tudor architecture Grade I listed gates Grade II listed parks and gardens in Essex Borough of Colchester