Maps and plans of the hall
There are several interesting maps and plans in circulation - floor plans of the hall, maps of the estate and county maps that indicate the presence of the hall.
The latest plan to come to light is a marvellous hand drawn map of Santon Downham and the surrounding area dated 1865 and produced by land surveyor William Steff of Attleborough. It was put up for sale in 2003 through London antique map dealer Jonathan Potter. We went to see it and to take a series of photographs including the one below. This shows just a small part of the map, which is huge - about 5 feet by 5 feet - and clearly needed to be in the public domain in the care of somewhere like a museum. We were therefore delighted when it was bought by the Suffolk County Council Record Office at Bury St Edmunds. The map is freely available for research and its reference number is HD2594.
Detail from the estate map of 1865 map, available for inspection at the Record Office in Bury.
We try to scan or photograph any maps, plans and other material that we come across to safeguard them for posterity, and hope to put a gallery of some of the others online in due course. In the meantime, please contact us if you would like to know what we have, or if you have material to add to the collection.