NHER 13142 (Building record) - Gimingham Hall (or Hall Farmhouse) and possible site of a medieval hall

March 1978. Visit.
Flint and brick, much altered and extended. Many blocked windows, fossil quoins, brick patching, all quite haphazard. Date of present oldest parts perhaps about 1700 - plaque of 1752 appears to be on a later addition. Now divided into two Norfolk County Council smallholding cottages. Owners say that there is documentary evidence that this stands on the site of John of Gaunt's Hall (they quote a book 'Soke of Gimingham' (S1), though an article in Bolingbroke Collection (S2) says that site of hall is unknown) which they say was burnt down about 1700.
A field to west is still called 'The King's 8 Acres'.
In previous hall, pillars marked the tenants' social status; each rank was not allowed to pass its appropriate pillar.
Information from (S2).
E. Rose (NAU), 14 March 1978.

(S3) 1988 notes that building has some quoins of stone, presumably reused medieval.
E. Rose (NAU), 7 August 1989.

Detailed research being undertaken by member of the public [1] shows that the present building is of very complicated construction; the stone quoins tend to be associated with 19th/20th century bricks, suggesting more than one period of reuse. There is a stone inscribed 1662 reset in a 19th century porch. The house may basically be of that date but gives the impression of two wings of a half H-shaped house. The 'hall with pillars' mentioned above was in fact a separate aisled hall used as a court house for the Duchy lands, east of the present hall.
In the grounds is a ruined circular icehouse like those at Saham Toney and Foxley.
E. Rose (NLA), 22 June 2000.