Felbrigg

Felbrigg Hall

The hall was the home of the Windham family and was originally built by Thomas Windham. More recently it was the home of Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer (1906-1969) who was a distinguished historian and biographer.

Ketton-Cremer was educated at Harrow and Oxford and wrote a number of books about the county including Norfolk in the Civil War (1969) and A Norfolk Gallery (1948). However, he is probably best remembered for Felbrigg, the story of a House (1962) which charts the history of the Windham family from the early seventeenth century.

Memorial Plaque to R. W. Ketton Cremer, Felbrigg Hall

There is an intriguing poem about Ketton-Cremer that was written by the Dilham-based poet Michael Rivière:
 

Families have no beginning, but can end
Though 350 armigerous years
Brighten the vellum. But life may descend
Obliquely, and a score of Norfolk squires
Are summed up here into a fresh dimension
That can progenerate outside the reach
Of county gossip and outlive the plantation
Of those long woods of Spanish chestnut and beech.
For a while over his arable and pasture
The rooks come idling home. The piled clouds grow
And fade this late October afternoon.
Here in his great library, ill and slow,
He leans between his lamp and the young moon,
Become the elements of more than nature.

On his death, Ketton-Cremer bequeathed Felbrigg Hall to the National Trust.

St. Margaret's church, which lies in the grounds of Felbrigg Hall, contains many memorials to the Windham family. It also contains some of the finest brasses in the county.

Sir Thomas Browne was the Windham family physician and attended both Thomas Windham (c.1585-1654) and his son John Windham (1622-1665).

In August 1892, Oscar Wilde rented a house in the village of Felbrigg while working on his new play A Woman of No Importance.