Yesterday (4th December), Howard Brooks of the Trust went on a site visit to Marks Hall at Coggeshall in Essex, not far from Colchester. He is working with the Historical Research Project run by the University of Essex at Colchester which, at the request of the Trustees of Marks Hall Estate, is conducting research into the history of the lost great Jacobean mansion at Marks Hall. The volunteers of the CAG (Colchester Archaeological Group) are involved with Howard in a programme of excavation on the site of the mansion, which was demolished in 1950.
From the Marks Hall web-site: ‘… In 1605 [Marks Hall] was bought by Robert Honywood. Following a dispute over the inheritance, the Estate was sold at auction in 1897 to Thomas Phillips Price. Mr Phillips Price had a great love of trees and woodlands at Marks Hall and on his death in 1932 he left the Estate to the nation for the advancement of agriculture, arboriculture and forestry. His third wife was left a ‘life interest’, the bequest to the nation not taking place until she died in 1966. During the war substantial parts of the Estate were requisitioned for the occupation of the service personnel based at Earls Colne airfield. After the war the Estate was greatly neglected; the buildings and lakes falling into disrepair. The massive Honywood Oaks in the deer park, having been preserved for centuries, were felled to make way for coniferous plantings. In 1971 the Thomas Phillips Price Trust, a registered Charity, was formed. Since that time the Trust, now renamed Marks Hall Estate, has worked to restore the property and create an Arboretum of national significance. The Estate was opened to the public in 1993 …’
Marks Hall has gardens and an arboretum which are open to the public, including a WW2 memorial to the airmen, with a tea room, shop and visitor centre in a restored Essex barn. For more information, go to www.markshall.org.uk/
Read more about the University’s research project at http://markshall.essex.ac.uk/
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