The Park owned by the Holt family

In 1702 Sir Robert Bacon sold the Redgrave Hall Estate to Sir John Holt, the Lord Chief Justice, to whom he may have been in debt.

Holt was held in high esteem by his contemporaries as a supporter of civil liberties. He was the most famous judge in the history of witchcaft in England, and played an important role in suppressing the persecution mania. He also made a landmark ruling on slavery, asserting that no man in England could be a slave. There is a portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery.
He died in 1709, and was buried in Redgrave Church, where there is a magnificent marble monument in his honour.

Click here for a family history of the Holts of Redgrave.

Sir John Holt

(Click here for enlarged 35 kb version)

His brother Rowland became Squire of Redgrave, until he died in 1719. His son, Rowland II, succeeded him, until his death in 1739, after which his 16 year-old son Rowland III became Squire.


Rowland Holt III	In 1745 and again in 1750 Rowland III undertook the Grand Tour in Italy, visiting Rome and Florence, and collecting works of art. He raised political eyebrows when he openly paid court to the Young Pretender (Bonnie Prince Charlie) in Rome. He came back inspired with ideas about classical culture (and maybe Roman Catholicism).

In the 1760's Rowland Holt commissioned the famous landscape gardener Lancelot 'Capability' Brown to remodel the Hall and Park in fashionable classical style.


The Hall Redgrave Hall was rebuilt in white Woolpit brick. Holt did not like the red brick of the old Bacon house ("a red house puts the whole valley in a fever" he is reputed to have told the landscape designer Humphry Repton). The new house had four ionic pilasters supporting a triangular pedimented facade displaying the Holt family coat of arms. The bricklaying and carpentry work were subcontracted to John Hobcroft and Henry Holland. The house was built around a central courtyard, backing onto the 'great hall' of Bacon's house which became the new kitchens. Surviving plans give an idea of what the Hall was like inside.	View of the Lake & Hall from a painting, 1803 The Park and Hall, c.1820 (click image for 46kb enlarged version)
Some people think the house was ugly. It certainly looked rather four-square, but this was in keeping with Palladian architecture such as the Villa Badoer. The result was an imposing and compact focal point set in the beauty of ancient parkland.

	The Park Brown remodelled the Park, keeping the ancient trees, but adding extra clumps and shelterbelts, such as those on the northern and eastern boundaries. He planted other trees in scenic places, and dammed the stream running through the Park to produce the sinuous, 50-acre Lake. Holt commissioned the eminent landscape artist William Hannan to paint panoramic views of the Park. The painting below shows both young and old trees, and deer resting in the shade. An island is visible centre left.
Brown built a Palladian 'rotunda' or round house in one corner of the Park, and a 'water house' (later known as the Kennels) beside the Lake. A decorative Orangery and a red brick stable block were built near the Hall. The cost of remodelling the Park was a prodigious £30,000. In the late 18th century the average skilled worker could expect to earn about £25 per year.	Redgrave Lake c.1780, viewed from the east by William Hannan

Rowland Holt III became an unpopular man locally, and was nicknamed 'Tyrant of Manors' for too strictly enforcing his manorial rights. He seems to have been ambitious. He was elected a Tory MP for Suffolk in 1759, but withdrew in 1767 when he failed to be nominated. He owned a house in London, at 47 Pall Mall. When he died unmarried in 1786 the Estate passed to his brother Thomas. Thomas Holt was Squire of Redgrave until his death in 1799, when the Estate passed to his nephew George Wilson, eldest son of his sister Lucinda, who had married Thomas Wilson in 1752.
Thus the Estate passed into the Wilson family.