Sizewell Hall

Sizewell Hall is a Christian conference centre in Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, England. It is owned by the Ogilvie family [ [http://www.burkes-peerage.net/familyhomepage.aspx?FID=0&FN=Ogilvie2-479 Burke's Peerage - Preview Family Record ] ] .

. CYM has developed an activity holiday for school children in the African Village [ [http://www.c-y-m.org.uk/youth/africa.shtml CYM - African Adventure ] ] in the Hall grounds.

The Ogilvie family purchased the property in 1859 and expanded the estate to more than 6,000 acres, and extended the house. Mrs Margaret Ogilvie was a benefactress who established a research award (Readership in ophthalmology) at Oxford University, and was memorialised by J. M. Barrie. [J. M. Barrie, "Margaret Ogilvie" (Hodder and Stoughton 1898). ] From this house, not far from RSPB Minsmere, the ophthalmic surgeon Fergus Menteith Ogilvie (1861-1918) [Obituary, "British Medical Journal" Feb. 2 1918, p. 164 [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=2339799&pageindex=1] . ] formed the very large Collection of British Birds which, in a celebrated partnership with the taxidermist Thomas Gunn of Norwich, were mounted in cases with unusually beautiful simulated habitats. [Biography and sample images, [http://www.taxidermy4cash.com/ogilvie1.html] . ] The collection (now in Ipswich Museum) is considered the best of its kind in Great Britain. [See Foreword by Howard Mendel (Natural History Museum) in C. Frost, "The Ogilvie Bird Collection, An Illustrated Guide" (120pp., Long Melford 1989), p. 7. (ISBN-0-9512263-2-0): cf also G. Maynard, "Guide to the Ogilvie Collection of British Birds" (104 pp., Ipswich Corporation Museum, Ipswich 1938), 3-5. Online article [http://www.articlealley.com/article_142401_22.html] ] The Hall was rebuilt after a fire in 1920. Glencairn Stuart Ogilvie developed nearby Thorpeness. The Ogilvie family moved out when the army commandeered the hall in World War II.

After the War, it became a private school run by Harry Tuyn. One of his famous students was Sheridan Morley. The school closed in the late 1950s. The school was a progressive, co-educational establishment where pupils could study what they liked, if they liked. (It is not to be confused with the progressive Summerhill School at Leiston nearby). It was said that subjects such as Geography, Maths and Latin were not taught at all on the ground that they were too boring. [ [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/17/db1701.xml&page=2 Sheridan Morley - Telegraph ] ] However this cannot be true, because it was a copy of "Kennedy's Latin Primer" from Sizewell Hall School which gave to Benjamin Britten and Myfanwy Piper the words for Miles's Latin "benedicite" in Britten's opera "The Turn of the Screw". [cite news |author=Valentine Cunningham|title=Filthy Britten|url=http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/arts/story/0,,627778,00.html|format= |work=The Guardian |location=London |date=2002-01-05|accessdate=2008-06-28] [Christopher Stray 'Kennedy's Latin primer in Britten's "Turn of the Screw"'. [http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:q_jj3as2IKQJ:faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/westbury/paradigm/vol2/Par2.6.Stray.rtf+Sizewell+Hall+School&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=19 "Paradigm" 2.6 (2003), 9-13] ]

In the 1960s the Hall was the headquarters for Taylor Woodrow as they were constructing Sizewell A nuclear power Station ['Power houses' [http://noumenacognitaanddreams.blogspot.com/2008/02/power-houses.html] ] .

Sizewell Hall was used as a location for the television adaptation of "The Lost Prince" [ [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/lostprince/notes_locations.html Masterpiece Theatre | The Lost Prince | Production Notes | Locations ] ] and for "Lovejoy".

External links

* [http://sizewellhall.com Sizewell Hall]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryall/collections/72157600001510315/ Photographs of Sizewell Hall]

References