NHER 8016 (Building record) - Stratton Strawless Hall

This hall dates to around 1800, replacing one visible on (S1), burnt down, two storeys, six bays, centre two projecting slightly under a pediment bearing a coat of arms. (S2) said that the façade had been 'lowered recently' in 1957; it is hard to see what he means by this especially as he says the pediment is original, but local inhabitants also say that the building had been 'very badly modernised' by a previous owner in around 1950. The entrance is a triple archway with two Tuscan columns giving onto a recessed entrance with two doors with fanlights. Inside formerly two apsed rooms one containing the staircase, but the house is now divided into flats and these were not accessible. To the north a projecting wing has a large blocked round-headed window. Unusually there is a detached house of not much later (if at all) date, smaller, four bays, two storeys with upper windows smaller than lower and dentilled cornice; a typical Georgian four square house now with modern pseudo-Ionic porch, owner restored the Hall in 1974, putting it in excellent condition. To the south is a single storeyed extension and behind it is a tall block added in about 1940 by the RAF as a radar control HQ built of concrete with narrow square buttresses in typical airfield style.
The Park has been sold off to farmers, caravan owners etc.
Behind the Hall is what is said to be the largest cedar-of-Lebanon in Britain.
E. Rose (NAU), 3 March 1977.

(S3) states that the date of the former hall was 1680. Engraving in (S4) shows that the smaller house north of the hall was formerly connected by a wing wall, and that there was an identical one to the south where the RAF extension now is. These pavilion houses however did not have central doorways as the southern one now has, but the blocked round-headed opening in the wing wall was a door, with windows each side. There was indeed an extra storey, now removed, on the main building with small windows, and the pediment (which must have been reset in the alterations) stood in front of a hipped roof.
E. Rose (NAU), 26 January 1982.

The RAF building was the radar headquarters for 12 Group, RAF Coltishall. Information from local source.

Architects drawings (pre-1992) as large rolled plans.
E. Rose (NAU).

According to [1] the present hall was built by the son of Robert Marsham 1708-1797 who had stockpiled white bricks to rebuild the hall but never got round to doing it. Thus (one presumes) the bricks were at least 20 years old when used.
E. Rose (NAU), 14 December 2000.