West Stow Manor

The manor of West Stow was leased to Sir John Croftes by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in 1526. Sir John was a substantial flockmaster, or sheep farmer, who would eventually purchase these lands from the Crown in 1540, after the Dissolution of Bury Abbey. He was most likely responsible for building the gatehouse. Sir John Croftes’ other distinction was that he was Master of the Horse to Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, whose main country residence was at nearby Westhorpe Hall. This may well account for Mary Tudor’s coat of arms being present, inlaid into the fabric of the gatehouse; although, in truth, nobody quite knows how it got there. One story is that it might have been taken during the violent demolition of Westhorpe Hall, rescued and placed in situ over the entrance to West Stow.Inside the building, one of its finest features is a set of Elizabethan wall-paintings. These were discovered during nineteenth-century renovations in a small room on the second floor of the gatehouse. These depict, in naive form, a hunting scene and the Four Ages of Man: a young man out hunting, inscribed ‘This do I all the day’; a man embracing a woman – ‘Thus do I while I may’; a middle-aged man looking on – ‘Thus did I when I might’; and a bent old man, leaning on his stick, who says ‘Good Lord, will this world last ever’.