THE HISTORY
A BRIEF HISTORY OF TENDRING AND THE HALL
The name ‘Tendring’ is probably derived from the Saxon word signifying ‘Tender’, meaning pasture or meadow. It appears in the Domesday Book (1086) as ‘Tendering’ and ‘Tenderinga’. At the Norman Conquest, the village of Tendring was given to Eustace (Earl of Boulogne), the bishop of London, Ralph Peverell, and their under tenants. At that time were five manors in Tendring; Old Hall or Tendring (now The Hall) being one of them.
An earlier house on the site of the present one was owned by Maud, wife of King Stephen and used by him as a hunting lodge. Subsequent owners have been Oger de Curton, Sir Andrew de Blund, his daughter Catherine who was married to Sir Richard Battaile, Lord of Wivenhoe. Their daughter Margery was married to Sir William de Sutton and The Hall appears to have passed down through the de Sutton family for several generations. The Doreward family then became owners; John Doreward was the Speaker of the House of Commons and, in 1438, founded a hospital at Bocking. One of the descendants of the Doreward family, and owner of The Hall, was Christian who was married to John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford. In 1501 it was owned by Catherine Pyrton who is buried in the Chancel of Little Bentley Church. After that, The Hall was in the possession of William Drury, a judge.
Tendring Church was at one time owned by the manor of Tendring. The advowson right (appointment of the clergy) has since been passed to Balliol College, Oxford. The church itself is well worth a visit and is famous for its Hammer Beam roof truss which is reputed to be the oldest in the country, predating the roof of Westminster Hall.
The present house was built in the seventeenth century and extended in 1927. At that time Percy Cain landscaped the gardens. The Cedar of Lebanon in the centre of the main lawn is reputed to be over six hundred years old.
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Biographical Note. Stephen Percy Cane was born on 20th September 1881 at Bocking Mill near Braintree. After leaving school he studied art at the Chelmsford College of Science and Art until he left to study architecture as a pupil if S.F. Pierce. By this time he had already designed a number of gardens in the Chelmsford district and he soon decided that he wished to become a garden architect. After the 1914-18 war he trained at the Chelmsford County School of Horticulture and in 1919 set up an office as a landscape and garden architect in London. Among his many commissions were the design of the gardens at Dartington Hall in Devon and Falkland Palace in Fife. He also carried out work abroad including the design of the gardens of the presidential palace in Athens, the Imperial Palace in Addis Ababa and the British Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. He was, however, pre-eminently a designer of the gardens of English country houses. In 1963 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded him the Veitch Memorial Gold Medal in recognition of his work. He retired in 1973 and died in 1976 aged 95.