Domesday Book Hockwold is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and it is said that there was a property on the site belonging to William De Warenne before passing it to Alveva, the wife of the Earl of Mercia.

  Sir Thomas Tindale or Tyndall (1505-1583) was the eldest of nine children born to Sir John Tindale (1486-1539), who in turn was heir to Sir William Tindale (died 1496) and his wife Mary, who inherited the Mundeford-Ingeldesthorp properties. Sir William, was also, through his maternal great-grandmother, declared heir to the Crown of Bohemia in 1501. He declined

Sir William Paston William Paston, 1st baronet, (1528–1610) was the father of the first Earl of Yarmouth. He studied at Gonville Hall, Cambridge, He served as the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk between 1565 and 1556 and received a knighthood in August 1578.

The new house took the name of the manor which was called Poynings, after the family who had owned it for nearly 250 years before it passed to a cousin Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. His son the 5th Earl inherited Poynings but died childless, and bequeathed his properties to Henry VIII, who sold Poynings to Thomas Tindale.