Haveringland Hall, Norfolk
Haveringland Hall was an Italianate country house at Haveringland in the English county of Norfolk.
Built 1839–1843 for Edward Fellowes, later 1st Baron de Ramsey, it was demolished in 1947 after wartime damage rendered it surplus to requirements.
The stable courtyard with its clock-tower survives and is listed at Grade II.
Earlier houses
The earliest recorded house was a medieval moated manor owned by Sir Thomas Hyrne in 1580.About 1674 William Fellowes built a new hall 0.5 mi north of the moat, laying out formal gardens between the two sites.
Plans of 1674 and 1807, and a tithe map of 1738, show a two-storey mansion with mansard roofs and shallow projecting wings overlooking an artificial lake.
William Henry Fellowes occupied this second hall until his death in 1837; his son Edward demolished it in 1840.
Third hall
In 1839 Edward Fellowes engaged architect Edward Blore to design a new house on higher ground north of the lakes.Completed in 1843 and faced in Bath stone, the three-storey building featured corner attics, an observatory tower and roughly forty bedrooms.
A clock-tower gateway—its mechanism said to match those at Buckingham Palace—formed the main approach.
Ownership by the Barons de Ramsey
- Edward Fellowes was created Baron de Ramsey in 1887 but died one month later.
- His son William Fellowes, 2nd Baron de Ramsey, divided his year between Ramsey Abbey and Haveringland Hall.
- The estate passed in 1925 to his grandson Ailwyn Fellowes, 3rd Baron de Ramsey. When he came of age in 1931 the trustees moved the family seat to Abbots Ripton Hall, leaving Haveringland largely unoccupied.
In May 1939 newspapers report that one of the 2nd Baron de Ramsey's daughters, Hermione, Baroness Cederstrom was in residence, and hosted a visit by her younger sister Sybil Butler, Countess of Ossory and her husband George Butler, Earl of Ossory.
1940s: Vacancy, requisition and demolition
In February 1940 the agents Knight, Frank & Rutley advertised Haveringland Hall, described as "enlarged and brought up to date" to be let with 26 acres of immediate grounds—or, if desired, with the sporting rights over the entire 4,267-acre estate. The Italian-style mansion was promoted for its large lake offering coarse fishing, while the estate's game books recorded average annual bags of 1,240 pheasants and about 700 partridges over the preceding five seasons.During the Second World War the grounds were requisitioned for RAF Swannington; the hall served as the officers’ mess from 1944.
A well-known photograph shows five B-24 Liberators of the 445th Bomb Group flying over the house.