Moreton Hall, Bury St Edmunds

Moreton Hall is a Grade II* listed building in Bury St Edmunds, a market town in the county of Suffolk, England.

It was designed by the Scottish architect Robert Adam and built in 1773 as a country house for John Symonds (1729–1807), a clergyman and Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University.

[1] From 1962, the building and surrounding 30 acres of parkland was used by the Moreton Hall Preparatory School, an independent co-educational preparatory school founded by Lady Miriam Fitzalan-Howard (daughter of Lord Howard of Glossop) and her husband Commander Peregrine Hubbard.

The Moreton Hall School Trust acquired the freehold to the building and parklands in 2009.

[5] Professor John Symonds (1730-1807) built the Hall which was he called St Edmund’s Hill in 1773.

His mother was the daughter of Merilina Jermyn whose family owned the nearby Rushbrooke estate.

[9] An engaving of part of Bury St Edmunds was made in 1774 immediately after the Hall was built which shows the new Adam structure on the extreme left.

[10] He did not marry and when his younger brother Captain Thomas Symonds retired in 1788 he invited him and his wife Elizabeth Malet with their children to come and live at the Hall.

[13] After Martin’s death in 1824 his wife continued to live at the Hall intermittently and also rented it to wealthy tenants.

Much of the estate including Boxted Hall was sold and when John came of age he inherited a great deal of money.

Percy Ridley Thompson (1860-1955) and his second wife Alice Bower (1874-1951) lived at the Hall until 1947 when it was sold and became a school.