The Helmingham Estate History

The Tollemache Family

The Tollemache family has lived in Suffolk from shortly after the Norman Conquest right up to the present day. They have played a significant role in the development of both the county and the country, while also maintaining and improving Helmingham Hall.

The early years

The Tollemache family has lived in Suffolk from shortly after the Norman Conquest right up to the present day. Their home for the first 400 years was at Bentley near Ipswich. Despite their proud boast to the contrary – “Before the Normans into England came, Bentley was my seat and Tollemache my name” – it seems now that the family actually came over from Avranches on the Normandy coast. Their name was spelt Talemache, meaning ‘purse bearer.’ It has been recorded that Hugh Tollemache was Purse Bearer to Henry I.

The Tollemache family remained at Bentley as squires and knights throughout the turbulent years of the early centuries, fighting for both Henry II against the Welsh and Edward I against the Scots, even fighting against their neighbours in order to retain their lands. Two Tollemache knights from Bentley fought at the Battle of Crécy against the French in 1346.

Founding Helmingham Hall

In 1487, John Tollemache married Elizabeth Joyce, the heiress of Helmingham, and his son Lionel also married a Joyce, thus further cementing the union, and so they moved to Helmingham where the Joyce family home of Creke Hall stood. John Tollemache and his wife proceeded to pull the hall down and build in its place Helmingham. Helmingham was completed in 1510, and it still stands today, surrounded by a deep moat, serene gardens and deer park.

Gardens built to last

Work started on the gardens some years after the family moved to Helmingham, old maps and drawings show the original shape of the main walled garden predates the house by many years. It was most probably of Saxon origin and constructed to protect stock from marauders. There was a wooden palisade in place to protect the garden from deer until the present garden wall was built in 1745.

There are two rose gardens at Helmingham, the main one on the west side of the house is described first in the Tour of the Gardens. The second garden, to the east side of the house, was laid out in 1982. The intention was to create something close to the kind of garden that the family might have had in Tudor times, but would also include old, scented shrub roses. The garden is laid out in a pattern combining a square, circle and cross in three decorative themes. Now, many years later, it looks as if it has always been there.

Repair and recovery

Helmingham has been extremely lucky over the centuries – whenever the Hall has been in danger of falling into disrepair, another generation of Tollemaches has come along, who by their energy and love for the place have rebuilt and restored their home.

In 1840 the 1st Lord Tollemache, found the house in a deplorable condition upon his inheritance, with a great deal of restoration – particularly on the garden front – needing to be done. At this time, the courtyard overhang was bricked in. It is believed that Anthony Salvin was the architect responsible for the changes, and he was also made responsible by Lord Tollemache for the design and building of Peckforton Castle on his Cheshire estate. Sadly, all correspondence, estimates and bills for the work at Helmingham have since been lost.

Bringing it into the 20th century

Just over a hundred years later in 1953, John the 4th Lord Tollemache came to Helmingham and again found the Hall sadly neglected, with no electric light, no bathrooms and no running water – until this time, drinking water had come from the moat! The roof was full of holes and there were wall tiles and bricks lying everywhere. Without the vigour and enthusiasm of John and his wife, Helmingham and its rich heritage would have joined the ranks of so many other family homes which have fallen into irreparable disrepair.

Royals at Helmingham

Queen Elizabeth I is said to have twice visited Helmingham: first in 1561, and later to attend the christening of Lionel Tollemache as her godchild. Lionel Tollemache marked the first of ten consecutive generations of the family with that name. Helmingham has also been privileged to receive Her Majesty The Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family on many occasions over the last few years.

In 1611 King James I established the title of Baronet, and the contemporary Lionel Tollemache was one of the very first to be titled. During the Civil War and before the Restoration in 1660, Helmingham was one of the headquarters of the secret Society of the Sealed Knot, which was instrumental in restoring Charles II back on the throne. In the Hall there are several letters written in exile in Paris from him to Elizabeth Tollemache. Her father had been ‘whipping boy’ to James I’s son – later Charles I – and had earned his Earldom of Dysart and the beautiful Ham House in Richmond Park by taking a beating for the young prince for his misdemeanours.

Elizabeth was a somewhat notorious lady, who on the death of her father became Countess of Dysart in her own right; whilst she and her husband were involved with the Sealed Knot, she still maintained a close friendship with Cromwell. When her husband Lionel Tollemache died, she married again, her second husband being the Duke of Lauderdale, the ‘L’ of the ‘CABAL’ government. On the death of Elizabeth, Ham House was inherited by Lionel Tollemache, her son, who thus became the 3rd Earl of Dysart. He brought more property into the family through marriage with a Wilbraham heiress, who owned the Cheshire properties of Woodhey and Peckforton. Lionel’s brother, General Thomas Tollemache, was killed fighting the French at Brest in 1694. The last three generations of the family have served in the Coldstream Guards.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Wilbraham Tollemache, 6th Earl of Dysart, died without a male heir, leaving his sister Louisa to inherit his title together with Ham House and Buckminster near Grantham. Ham House was turned over to the National Trust in 1948, whilst her descendants still live today at Buckminster. Louisa’s younger sister Jane inherited Helmingham and the Cheshire property, and it was her grandson, John Tollemache, who was made a peer in 1876 for his services to agriculture and the welfare of his tenants.

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