Owners of Ubbeston Hall » Ubbeston Parish

Owners of Ubbeston Hall from Dr Joanna Martin's 2008 report, The History of Ubbeston Hall commissioned by Nick and Annie Reid the present owners of the Hall. They have kindly allowed access to and use of this research.

Above photograph of Ubbeston Hall by Rev. Edmund Farrer early 20th century. By kind permission of Suffolk Record office, Ipswich.

1637 Samuel Cooke of St Andrew's, Ilketshall, owns an estate in Ubbeston, which includes a close called Harefield. This property is sold to John Sone of Laxfield in 1637.

1641 John Sone of Laxfield (c.1539-1641) starts to build ‘a very fayre house' called Harefield House in Ubbeston. The foundation stone is laid on 29 March, but Sone dies 7 months later, leaving the house unfinished.

1641 Harefield House is inherited by John Sone's daughter, Mary Sone, aged about 4. Is the house finished at this stage, or is it left half built?

1657 Mary Sone (born c.1637) marries, as his second wife, Sir Robert Kemp, 2^nd Bart., of Gissing in Norfolk (there is a marriage record in November 1657 at St Andrew's, Holborn between Sir Robert Kemp, Bart. and Mary Sone): Kemp is living at Harefield House by 1673, when he is mentioned in Richard Blome's Britannia. In 1674 he is taxed on 15 hearths at Ubbeston. (He is also mentioned in the Ubbeston Town Book in 1661, having signed the accounts so may have been here as early as that.)

Did Sir Robert Kemp alter and/or enlarge John Sone's house, or did he build an entirely new house? He seems to have made Harefield House his main residence: the Kemp family's ancestral home, Gissing Hall, is said to have been demolished around 1700.

It seems likely that Sir Robert Kemp's mother-in-law, Mary Sone, lived at Harefield House with the Kemps until her death in 1685. She would have been entitled to a share (usually a third) of the income of the estate. (A Mrs Soane gives £3.10s for the relief of the poor of Ubbeston in 1674 and in 1723, £1.10s. In 1679 Mrs Sone gives 2s.11d ‘for the building of a House of Correction'. The first and last entry could be Mary Sone but the second is a mystery.)

1710 Sir Robert Kemp, 2^nd Bart. dies and Ubbeston Hall is inherited by his eldest son, who becomes Sir Robert Kemp, 3^rd Bart. The latter is probably the last member of his family to live in Ubbeston.

1734 Sir Robert Kemp, 3^rd Bart. dies and Harefield House is inherited by his eldest son, who becomes Sir Robert Kemp, 4^th Bart. (Robert Kemp signs Town Book accounts in 1738 so he may have lived in Ubbeston for a while.)

By 1741 Harefield House is known as Ubbeston Hall.

By 1748 Ubbeston Hall is occupied by Eleazar Davy, who is there until about 1779.

1752 Sir Robert Kemp, 4th Bart. dies without issue and Ubbeston Hall is inherited by his brother, John Kemp, who becomes 5^th Bart.

1761 Sir John Kemp, 5^th Bart., dies without issue and Ubbeston Hall is inherited by his nephew (son of his brother the Revd. Thomas Kemp), John Kemp, who becomes 6^th Bart.

1771 Sir John Kemp, 6^th Bart. dies without issue and Ubbeston Hall is inherited by his sister, Mary Kemp.

1770s Gouache drawing of Ubbeston Hall shows old Hall and stables. (Part of which is now Ubbeston Hall Farm)

c.1783 Mary Kemp dies unmarried and without issue, directing in her will that her estates in Suffolk should be sold after her death.

1784 The Ubbeston Hall estate is sold. Joshua Vanneck, later Lord Huntingfield, of Heveningham Hall, buys Ubbeston Hall; other parts of the estate are sold to the Adairs of Flixton Hall.

c.1784-1804 Tenant of Ubbeston Hall is Mr George Simpson.

1805-1814 or later Tenant of Ubbeston Hall is William Cole

1807-1809 Ubbeston Hall is demolished by the Heveningham estate and rebuilt on approximately the same site at a cost of £927 4s 7d, using materials from the old house.

1840 Tithe survey: Ubbeston Hall is owned by Lord Huntingfield and occupied by Robert Palmer.

1844 The antiquarian Augustus Page states that Ubbeston Hall ‘has been pulled down'. (Henry Davy below his 1840 etching of Ubbeston Church writes in support of this: ‘Sir Joshua Vanneck bought Ubbeston Hall in 1784. It was pulled down and the present house built.')