"Sir William hath at his own great costs and charges erected and builded a new house, very fair, large and stately, made of brick and embattl'd."
So, in 1566, wrote Thomas Larke, surveyor to Sir William Petre, about Ingatestone Hall, the new house that Sir William had built twenty-five years earlier in the midst of his Essex estates. Since then, the house has passed through the hands of fifteen generations of the Petre family who continue to own and occupy it today.
The Hall stands in open countryside, one mile from the village of Ingatestone and substantially retains its original Tudor form and appearance with its mullioned windows, high chimneys, crow-step gables and oak-panelled rooms and is surrounded by ten acres of enclosed gardens comprising extensive lawns, walled garden and stew pond.
The Hall remains primarily a private family residence - and, no doubt because of this, many visitors have commented on its friendly, welcoming atmosphere - but, since 1992, the family have made the house and grounds available for a wide variety of purposes. On specified days during the summer months, visitors are welcome to spend a couple of hours or more exploring the house and grounds.
Among the rooms that can be seen, which contain paintings, furniture and memorabilia accumulated over the centuries, are:
- The SUMMER PARLOUR, the former ballroom in which teas and light meals are served to visitors and where private dinners or receptions can be accommodated.
- The oak-panelled STONE HALL, created by Lady Rasch to replace the former Great Hall, lost when the West wing was demolished.
- The DINING ROOM with its walls lined with oak-panelling and tapestries.
- The OLD KITCHEN with its cavernous open fireplace.
- "MY MASTER'S LODGING", the principal bedroom, with its four-poster bed.
- The QUEEN ANNE ROOM in contrasting 18th century style with pine rather than oak panelling.
- The 29 metre long GALLERY lined with 40 portraits of successive generations of the Petre family and containing displays of memorabilia accumulated over the centuries.
- Two secret PRIESTS' HIDING-PLACES concealed within the thickness of the walls. The Petre family sheltered a number of Catholic priests at Ingatestone, among them was St. John Payne, who was executed in 1582.
The orchards that almost entirely covered the GROUNDS in Tudor times have disappeared but a few features from those days remain - the high boundary wall and the walled garden where summer al fresco picnics were enjoyed, the stew pond and the avenue of ancient lime trees that borders it and the cistern in the Old Orchard in which until very recently, spring water was collected to supply the house.
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Natalie Bergman - Gunslinger.
