Woodbastwick Hall is a country house at

Woodbastwick Woodbastwick is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is located on the River Bure between Cockshoot Broad and Salhouse Broad, within The Broads and close to Bure Marshes NNR ( national nature reserve). The city of Norw ...

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 ...

History

The house dates back to circa 1600. In 1807 the house and estates were acquired for £76,000 from the trustees of Thomas Allday Kerrison by John Barwell Cator (nephew of

John Cator John Cator (21 March 1728 – 26 February 1806) was an English timber merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1772 and 1793. He became a landowner and property developer with estates in later life in: Blackheath, Beckenh ...

), who became

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instrum ...

in 1818. It then passed down the Cator family. After a fire in 1819, Cator commissioned architect George Smith to rebuild the hall. After another serious fire in December 1882, the house was substantially rebuilt to a design by

Ewan Christian Ewan Christian (1814–1895) was a British architect. He is most frequently noted for the restorations of Southwell Minster and Carlisle Cathedral, and the design of the National Portrait Gallery. He was Architect to the Ecclesiastical Commiss ...

(completed in 1889), and then used as a

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

auxiliary hospital 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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and subsequently as an Agricultural Training College until it was demolished in 1971. The house was again rebuilt in 2004 and is now in the ownership of Henry Cator.

References

{{coord, 52.6928, 1.4419, display=title Country houses in Norfolk Ewan Christian buildings Houses completed in 1889