Thornham Magna is the larger sister village of

Thornham Parva Thornham Parva is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located to the north of sister village Thornham Magna and around five miles south of Diss, in 2005 its population was 50. By the time of the 2 ...

on the former estate of Thornham Hall, the Henniker family seat, in

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 Lowes ...

. It is about from Eye and close to the

A140 road The A140 is an 'A-class' road in Norfolk and Suffolk, East Anglia, England partly following the route of the Roman Pye Road. It runs from the A14 near Needham Market to the A149 south of Cromer. It is of primary status for the entirety o ...

from

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

. The two villages, both mentioned in ''

Magna Carta (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the ...

'', are a mile or two apart in an area of mostly arable farming and cattle grazing on the water meadows through which the River Dove flows. Their combined population was approximately 170 in 2001, 210 in 2011. left, The Four Horseshoes, 2006 Thornham Magna has several oak-beamed,

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

Tudor houses, a forge workshop, and a village hall. The Four Horseshoes

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

grade II* In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed; the building dates to the 15th century. The village church, St Mary Magdalene, was the Henniker family church. Originally built in the 14th century to replace a 12th-century church, with a Decorated

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

and

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

additions and a

green man The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is ...

carved above the porch entrance, it was extensively remodelled in the 1850s in

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The stained glass includes work by William Miller from the 1850s and W. G. Taylor from the 1880s, and one by

Morris and Co Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861–1875) was a furnishings and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer founded by the artist and designer William Morris with friends from the Pre-Raphaelites. With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–194 ...

reusing figures by

Edward Burne Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

of St John flanked by the two Marys as they would stand at the foot of the Cross. Among the memorials is a sculpture by John Kendrick in which allegorical figures of Faith and Hope flank an urn on which John Henniker-Major and his wife are depicted in profile.David Ross
"Thornham Magna, St Mary Magdalene Church"
''Britain Express'', retrieved 16 October 2020. Thornham Hall, at Thornham Magna, was built in the Tudor period on an E-shaped plan and remodelled in the 17th century and again in the second half of the 19th century, by

Sydney Smirke Sydney Smirke (20 December 1797 – 8 December 1877) was a British architect. Smirke who was born in London, England as the fifth son of painter Robert Smirke and his wife, Elizabeth Russell. He was the younger brother of Sir Robert Smirke ...

, to resemble a French château. After the First World War most of the estate was sold and the 95-room hall was first let, then reduced greatly in size and the remainder adapted as a modern house. It was requisitioned during the Second World War to house

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

and then let to a school for problem children. In 1954 it was destroyed by fire."Thornham's Heritage"
Thornham Estate, retrieved 16 October 2020. The current house, built in 1956 in historical style, is now operated by the ninth Baron Henniker and his wife as a

bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...

. Thornham Walks are open to the public; the 19th-century glass houses have been restored and the walled garden redesigned by Peter Thoday as an orchard for training people with disabilities."Thornham Hall"
''Parks and Gardens'', retrieved 16 October 2020.

References

External links

*
''Diss Express''
local newspaper {{authority control Villages in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District Civil parishes in Suffolk