Broke Hall Explained

Broke Hall ^[1] is an English country house at Nacton, near Ipswich, Suffolk. It overlooks the River Orwell, opposite Pin Mill. The gardens were landscaped by Humphry Repton in 1794,^[2] and the house is Grade II* listed.

The site was purchased by Sir Richard Broke, who built a manor house there, during the reign of Henry VIII. The present house was built by James Wyatt for Philip Bowes Broke in 1792, but is probably a remodelling of an earlier house built in 1775 by Richard Norris.

Broke Hall was the birthplace of Admiral Philip Bowes Vere Broke.^[3]

The property remained in the Broke family until 1887, when on the death of Admiral Sir George Broke-Middleton, it was inherited by his niece, Lady de Saumarez, formerly Jane Anne Broke, the wife of James Saumarez, 4th Baron de Saumarez, thus passing into the Saumarez family.^[4]

A primary school in Ipswich is named after the hall.

References

52.0054°N 1.2391°W

Notes and References

1. G. M. Miller, BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names (Oxford UP, 1971), p. 21.
2. https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/22499 TM2239 : 300-year-old lime avenue to Broke Hall
3. Book: Burke, John . John Burke (genealogist) . A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire . Broke Hall Suffolk Philip Bowes. . . 1832 . 151 .
4. Walford Dakin Selby, ed., The Genealogist, vol. 23 (1907), p. 143: "He on his uncle's decease in 1860, assumed the additional name of Middleton, and dying s.p. on 19th January 1887, the property devolved upon his niece, Jane Anne Broke, the daughter of his deceased brother, Captain Charles Acton Broke, 11. E. (ob. 1855). She, on 10th October 1882, became the wife of Sir James St Vincent, fourth Baron de Saumarez."