Hill Hall (Essex)

About

Hill Hall is an Elizabethan, and later, country house in Theydon Mount near Epping, Essex, England. Although owned by English Heritage, the building has now been divided into many private apartments. It is a Grade I listed building.

The importance of Hill Hall lies in two features. Firstly, it has some of the earliest classical decoration on any surviving building in Britain – the tiers of columns and friezes on the courtyard walls and the use of giant order columns (that is, rising through two storeys) on some of the exterior facades. Secondly, the 1969 fire destroyed most of the interiors but not, miraculously, a series of wall paintings on the first floor completed more or less when the house was built in the late 16th century. They are an unusual survival of classically inspired mural paintings. There have been a series of remodellings and additions, especially to the exterior.