Mr Chartouni’s improvements,  especially in new bathrooms and some furnishings are still in use at Hockwold. He found deeds and other papers belonging to the Rev William Newcome from 1613-1846, and deposited these with the Norfolk Records Office in 2001. His wife commissioned a sale of the fine furniture and other items, “sold for a pittance”

Nabil Chartouni Formerly Vice-President of Holiday Inn Hotels in the Middle East, Mr Chartouni took over Hockwold Hall in poor condition and made many improvements during his ownership 1987-2002. A Lebanese businessman and major donor to the American University in Beirut, he visited the Hall in 2016. He made the present entrance and tree-lined driveway, and planted the cedars on

June 1977 issue By September 1985, John and Gillian Nevin had taken over running the Hall, and immediately caused concern over the felling of trees. The Council imposed a Tree Preservation Order on 22 individual trees, 3 groups and an area of woodland. In November 1985, 14 new houses at Hockwold Hall were advertised in the "Jet 48" base

Brochure for the Law's Hotel On 30 May 1981, Philip Law moved into the Hall and obtained permission to operate it as hotel. In 1983, applications were made to build various extensions, a fish and chip shop and 16 dwellings, but these were never built. Chicago-born Law had worked in the finance office at Mildenhall Air Base up to

The Cut-off Channel was designed by Sir MacDonald & Partners to take flood water northwards, but its flat slope makes it possible also to convey water southwards from the Ouse at Denver as far as Hockwold. From there it is conveyed by tunnel and pipeline constructed 1978, to the head of the Essex river system. Therefore the

The Guardian, 19 March 1947 After a series of floods, Sir Murdoch MacDonald tried to resurrect Vermuyden’s scheme to drain the eastern tributaries of the Ouse around the South Level. After WWII and the 1947 floods, his firm was commissioned to design  and supervise construction of the present channel, completed in 1968.

"Drayning of the Great Fennes", 1642 The map faces west. The cutoff channel is at the bottom.  The cut-off channel was proposed originally by Sir Cornelius Vermuyden in 1642 to take the floodwaters of the Mildenhall and Brandon Rivers around the South Level and discharge the water safely into the Ouse downstream of the confluence of Denver Sluice. The money ran

The spoil bank along the cutoff channel was purchased in 1966 The present boundary of Hockwold Hall runs along the bank of the cut-off channel

Part of the building evident in the 1918 photograph, joining the 1895 extension to the 1757 stable block is no longer there, except for remnants of its walls. It was probably removed by Sir Harry Peat as surplus to his needs. The east end of the house has been rendered and the ground floor converted to a garage, and

Sir ‘Harry’ William Henry Peat, 1925. National Portrait Gallery Sir Harry Peat (born 1882) bought the Hockwold Hall in 1933 and the family had it until 1978. Until 1956, Sir Harry was Senior Partner of the accountancy firm Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co, that in 1991, became KPMG Peat Marwick (now simply KPMG), one of the “Big Four” international auditors. He