Down Hall is a Domesday manor site sitting on the edge of the historical settlement of Bradwell on Sea. Located close to the River Blackwater, this is a village with a long and intriguing past.
In Roman times Bradwell on Sea was a Saxon fort known as Othona, constructed after the invasion of AD43. Several hundred years later in the 7th century AD, Saint Cedd, an Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop from Lindisfarne in Northumbria, founded a monastery within the old walls of Othona, which survives to this day as one of Britain’s oldest remaining churches: St Peter-on-the-Wall.
In later years Down Hall became one of the area’s notable grand country houses owned by a wealthy local family.