Visited with @Chloe Explores and @delightfullyderelict
We were in the area on a day of fails so was nice to get in somewhere.
Fairly easy to get in, the outside doesn’t look very interesting I find Georgian Mansions aren’t the best looking buildings but the inside was lovely. Huge rooms stripped out, looking at the last report it looks like someone has been in tidying up some of the rubble that was laying around.
Some areas upstairs were out of bounds as they looked decidedly dodgy and some of the floors had to be treated by caution. There were old special occasion looking balloons dotted around and I assumed it had maybe been a wedding venue at some point, but it hasn’t been. I was surprised when I looked up the history and read what it’s last use was. I was also surprised at the price it fetched at auction recently, only £100,000 more than what my 2 bed council house is worth.
I loved the inside of this place, the massive rooms and corridors and the cellars with the dodgy steps. I find sometimes you can pick up atmospheres of a places past, like buildings keep that energy, and I could imagine how it was back when it was a stately home. It also felt very school like but far as I’m aware it has never been used as a school.
History -
Hainford Hall
A derelict Grade II Listed Georgian mansion with 14 bedrooms and 13 acres is a blank canvas and ready for redevelopment.
The hall was once a grand family home but fell into disrepair long before a breakers yard was founded that ran from the property. While being used as a breaker's yard, the back of the building completely fell off but has been covered up.
During the Second World War Hainford Hall was requisitioned by the military and it is thought the army used the rooms as offices.
It was then left abandoned in 1948, with the interior littered with junk and cobwebs, and with birds nesting inside.
In 2013 a fire broke out at the car scrap yard, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
At its peak the fire, which involved about 60 cars, had 45 firefighters in attendance with billowing black smoke visible from as far away as County Hall in Norwich. There was no investigation into the fire.
Excerpts from a message board thread regarding the Hall :
“... According to a publication on the internet, it was the ancestral seat of the Keppel family and I understand it was built around 1780 but abandoned in the 1940's. During which period did the Bulwer family reside there?”
“... I am very interested in Hainford Hall and would be very sorry to see any further deterioration to it as it was my families ancestrial home. My mother was a Bulwer and I have now completed and published an outstanding book on our family history that contains reference to Hainord Hall and our brief visit with the kind pemission of the owner. It was a strange feeling walking round the dusty cobwebbed rooms where once my ancestors were born laughed cried and died. 20 years of research of our Bulwer family from 4026BC to the present living family and if I can help in any way to save this old building please contact me.
The Bulwers were direct decendants of Rollo Ragnavaldsson the Norman Viking [William the Conq grt grt grandfather] who married into two royal lines that I traced back through the kings of Europe to the bible and then traced forward to the family of today. This building was the home of a family that changed the course of history and it would be a shame if Norfolk County Council allowed it to fall”
“... My great grandfather (Wallace Donald Easter) worked at Hainford hall as a woodman/gamekeeper, living in hainford road, where there may have been tied cottages I suspect? He and his wife Alice, had a daughter born there in 1919, Dorothy Gladys, my grandmother who I never knew”
We were in the area on a day of fails so was nice to get in somewhere.
Fairly easy to get in, the outside doesn’t look very interesting I find Georgian Mansions aren’t the best looking buildings but the inside was lovely. Huge rooms stripped out, looking at the last report it looks like someone has been in tidying up some of the rubble that was laying around.
Some areas upstairs were out of bounds as they looked decidedly dodgy and some of the floors had to be treated by caution. There were old special occasion looking balloons dotted around and I assumed it had maybe been a wedding venue at some point, but it hasn’t been. I was surprised when I looked up the history and read what it’s last use was. I was also surprised at the price it fetched at auction recently, only £100,000 more than what my 2 bed council house is worth.
I loved the inside of this place, the massive rooms and corridors and the cellars with the dodgy steps. I find sometimes you can pick up atmospheres of a places past, like buildings keep that energy, and I could imagine how it was back when it was a stately home. It also felt very school like but far as I’m aware it has never been used as a school.
History -
Hainford Hall
A derelict Grade II Listed Georgian mansion with 14 bedrooms and 13 acres is a blank canvas and ready for redevelopment.
The hall was once a grand family home but fell into disrepair long before a breakers yard was founded that ran from the property. While being used as a breaker's yard, the back of the building completely fell off but has been covered up.
During the Second World War Hainford Hall was requisitioned by the military and it is thought the army used the rooms as offices.
It was then left abandoned in 1948, with the interior littered with junk and cobwebs, and with birds nesting inside.
In 2013 a fire broke out at the car scrap yard, sending plumes of smoke into the air.
At its peak the fire, which involved about 60 cars, had 45 firefighters in attendance with billowing black smoke visible from as far away as County Hall in Norwich. There was no investigation into the fire.
Excerpts from a message board thread regarding the Hall :
“... According to a publication on the internet, it was the ancestral seat of the Keppel family and I understand it was built around 1780 but abandoned in the 1940's. During which period did the Bulwer family reside there?”
“... I am very interested in Hainford Hall and would be very sorry to see any further deterioration to it as it was my families ancestrial home. My mother was a Bulwer and I have now completed and published an outstanding book on our family history that contains reference to Hainord Hall and our brief visit with the kind pemission of the owner. It was a strange feeling walking round the dusty cobwebbed rooms where once my ancestors were born laughed cried and died. 20 years of research of our Bulwer family from 4026BC to the present living family and if I can help in any way to save this old building please contact me.
The Bulwers were direct decendants of Rollo Ragnavaldsson the Norman Viking [William the Conq grt grt grandfather] who married into two royal lines that I traced back through the kings of Europe to the bible and then traced forward to the family of today. This building was the home of a family that changed the course of history and it would be a shame if Norfolk County Council allowed it to fall”
“... My great grandfather (Wallace Donald Easter) worked at Hainford hall as a woodman/gamekeeper, living in hainford road, where there may have been tied cottages I suspect? He and his wife Alice, had a daughter born there in 1919, Dorothy Gladys, my grandmother who I never knew”
