Our History

300 AD – Roman Occupation

An important Roman family lived in a villa nearby, probably around 300 AD, and farmed the area around.

1818 – Jane Judith Bennet

Roger Kedington died in 1818. His heir was his daughter Jane Judith and her husband, Philip Bennet from Essex. Philip was eager to spend his new-found wealth on building a new hall, to the north of the main road. This was done under the direction of the fashionable architect Thomas Hopper, who also did work for the Prince Regent at Carlton House in London, building a vast conservatory for him where the prince used to lay on the most extravagant parties. During the nineteenth century four generations of Philip Bennet lived at Rougham, but as time passed they seemed to lose interest in the place.

1893 – James Johnstone

Eventually the Estate was sold in 1893 to James Johnstone, the owner of the London Evening Standard newspaper, who gave it to his son Edwin for his 21st birthday present. Quite a present! Edwin and his wife Marion Ada Yeo stayed for only 11 years but during that time they made huge changes to the Estate, building cottages and houses, placing a clock on the stumpy tower of the gatehouse, building a generator house for the hall, so supplying it with electricity and hot water.

Edwin didn’t forget the village community for whom he built a reading room where people could sit in the warm, read the papers and drink tea and he provided a large modern organ for Rougham Church which is still in use today. He had the hall gardens redesigned by George Paul, the famous rose grower and designer, and redesigned the driveways also. His wife Marion pursued her fascination with rare birds by funding expeditions to the Philippines. Then suddenly the newspaper that was paying for it all got into trouble and in 1904 the Estate had to be sold again.

1904 – George William Agnew

In 1904 the Estate was bought by George William Agnew, the great grandfather of George Agnew the current owner, who had made his money as an art dealer in London selling English paintings to the hugely rich industrialists of northern England and then to the even richer American industrialists from across the Atlantic.
He immediately had the hall enlarged, which sounds a strange thing to do, but the hall had few bathrooms and toilets and limited bedrooms. The Johnstone family had had no children, whilst George William had seven, all reaching marriageable age, and indeed it was the father-in-law of one of these who designed the extension, turning what was a glorified bachelor pad into a family home.

1906 – G W Agnew stands for Parliament

George William Agnew stood as a Liberal for parliament in 1906 and won the West Salford seat. To celebrate his victory, he had a group photograph taken of himself with the outdoor Estate staff, mostly gamekeepers and gardeners. Life went on in the house. The Edwardian years before the First World War look like a blissful time for the wealthy. Photographs of tennis parties, weddings and flower festivals fill the record.

1916 – Zeppelin Raid

Life at the hall was altogether quieter during these years, with one exception which occurred during the spring of 1916. A famous zeppelin raid over East Anglia happened during the night of 31 March and 1 April. One of the airships bombed Bury St Edmunds and flew close over Rougham Hall. Sir George (he had recently inherited a baronetcy for services to the arts from his father) was sleeping in one of the picturesque towers. He grabbed his deer stalking rifle and rushed up onto the tower roof from where he opened fire on the airship. Not surprisingly the zeppelin continued on its way relatively unscathed and Sir George went back to bed!

1940 – The Bombing of Rougham Hall

During the Second World War, the realities of life hit home even harder. In September 1940 Britain was on invasion alert. The retreat from Dunkirk had happened during the early summer, closely followed by the Battle of Britain and then in September the London blitz started.
The park at Rougham Hall contained a munitions dump and a number of troops were camped in the park, largely to guard these vital supplies. There were armed guards on the gates, barbed wire and lots of comings and goings. It would not have been hard to mistake all this activity for signs of a military headquarters being set up.

This is probably the message that reached Berlin because on the night of Monday 23 September 1940 a single bomber flew over Rougham Hall, dropping flares for a few minutes, before it dropped a bomb straight through the centre of the house and it exploded down in the cellar. One whole wing of the house vanished but miraculously no one was hurt.
The butler, Mattins, was having his night off as it was a Monday. It was his job to wake the house in the event of an air raid. In his absence no one else felt that they had the authority to wake the house. Had he been there, the standard procedure was for everyone to go down into the cellar, which was precisely where the bomb fell. They would almost certainly all have been killed.
The night after the bombing, the English language radio broadcast from Berlin given by William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) is supposed to have said that the house of the richest Jew in Britain had been bombed the night before.
Rushbrooke Hall in the neighbouring village was owned by the Rothschild family and it is possible that the Germans thought that they lived at Rougham rather than Rushbrooke, but this would hardly have justified an air raid in the middle of the Blitz when all London lay there waiting to be bombed.
Following the bombing, life at the hall came to a grinding stop. Sir George, now aged 89, went to stay with family in Thurston. The hall lay open to the elements. An auction was held, but with petrol rationing and other wartime restrictions, few came and fewer bid for anything. Large items were given away to anyone who could take them before they were ruined by the weather. The hall remains a ruin to this day.

Mattins’ services were no longer required. He was found a job with a London family who needed someone to look after their town house during the Blitz whilst they sensibly moved elsewhere. Mattins had keys for the whole house including the wine cellar. George William Agnew didn’t really drink wine so the cellar at Rougham only contained a little wine for guests. Things were different in London. The fully-stocked wine cellar there proved irresistible to Mattins who set about drinking his way through it. He died some while later of cirrhosis of the liver.

1941 – Rougham Airfield built

An airfield was built in Rougham in 1941. When the Americans joined the war after Pearl Harbour, they took over the new base. At its height three thousand men were stationed here flying B17 Flying Fortresses in bombing raids over occupied Europe. The airfield control tower has now been made into a museum, recording the history of the airfield and the men that were stationed there.
In 1944 two American airmen went up to the ruined hall on their day off. One photographed the other on his bike in front of the building.

1951 – The Suffolk Show

In 1951 the Suffolk Show came to Rougham and was located on the Rougham Estate’s largest field, the then 75 acre East Field. This was probably the largest public event ever to happen in Rougham!
In the weeks leading up to the show the weather had been very wet and concerns were voiced as to how the East Field would cope with all the people and vehicles moving around on it. Sir John Agnew, the owner of the Rougham Estate at the time, commented that ‘the 75 acres is very light land and no amount of water will make a great deal of difference’. Clearly they were all worried! As it turned out, the weather was dry with clear blue skies but a cold wind; very similar to more recent shows.

The two-day show attracted over 34,000 visitors with some from abroad including the United States. It was described in the Bury Free Press as a small canvas town with trade stands ranging from humble tents to ‘futuristic’ style buildings which might have come straight from the Festival of Britain exhibition. There were four miles of fencing and 1800 hurdles for the cattle pens, and a record number of cattle at the show, which was generally regarded as a great success.

1970 – Green Deserts and Rougham Tree Fairs

During the late 1970s John Agnew, in conjunction with Harry Hart, Loretta Quartey, Henry Streatfeild, Steve Sampson and others created Green Deserts, a charity dedicated to fighting the spread of deserts throughout the world by the planting of tree shelter belts. They undertook work in various countries including the Sudan.
The funding for this charity was generated largely by a series of highly popular fairs which took place in Rougham under the title of the Rougham Tree Fair. They formed part of a group of East Anglian fairs known as the Albion Fairs. Their theme was that of a reinvented rural lifestyle, embracing alternative technology, eastern philosophy, alternative medicine, traditional crafts, vegetarianism, music and ceremony. These fairs hit the mood of the times and ran from 1978 to 1982, raising much needed funds for the charity’s work abroad.

‘I was at the Rougham Tree Fair in 1979 and it’s stayed with me ever since – just seeing the poster of the fair gave me a jolt of excitement. The atmosphere was unique, gentle and joyous. I loved it.’ Yvonne

1994 – Rougham Airfield

Over the years John put on many events at the airfield, the most popular of which were The Rougham Air Displays and Wings Wheels and Steam. Thousands of enthusiasts flocked to Rougham Airfield to experience these spectacular shows that John Agnew put on each year. Highlights would often be visits by Spitfires and Hurricanes with pilots such as Charlie Brown putting on unforgettable aerobatic displays in these historic aircraft. The B17 Sally B from the Imperial War Museum at Duxford became almost an annual attraction. Flying Fortresses like this were flown by the Americans from Rougham during World War II.

The Rougham Airfield Control Tower has been restored and is now a museum which opens to the public each month and is well worth a visit. It is an appropriate legacy for all the airmen who risked their lives flying from Rougham and also for John who helped to bring so much of this about.