The lordship of the manor of Belchamp Water was, at the time of the Domesday survey, in the possession of Alberic de Vere, in whose family it remained until the C17. Under the de Veres it was held by a number of families until in 1539 it came to Sir Roger Wentworth. Sir Roger's grandson, John Wentworth, commissioned the surveyor Walker to prepare a map of his estate, which was completed in 1605 and showed that the house was surrounded by a garden with an orchard, a rectangular pond, and a dovecote, and was enclosed to west and north by a ditch. John Wentworth sold the manor (still officially held by the de Veres) to John Raymond in c 1611. The C16 manor house was replaced in 1720/21 by John Raymond III and map evidence suggests that the layout of the gardens most probably dates from this period (Walker, 1605; Chapman and Andre, 1777).

In c 1741 outlying parts of the estate, together with the lordship of the manor, were sold to Thomas Ruggles but the manor house was not included in the sale. The Rev Samuel Raymond, who succeeded in 1767 and married Margarette Brooke Bridges in 1780, laid out the little park to the south-west of the gardens with small clumps of trees (OSD 1799).

When Rev Raymond died in 1825, Samuel Millbank Raymond inherited and lived at Belchamp, where he was known as Squire Raymond, until his death in 1863. He was succeeded by his second son, Rev John Mayne St Clere Raymond, who in c 1865 recovered the lordship of the manor and in 1871 extended the house with the addition of a new wing. At around this time a sham castle folly was built beyond the park to the south-west, to act as an eyecatcher from the gardens (CL 1959). The large, late C19 extension to the house was reduced in the 1950s by the Rev M St Clere Raymond's grandson, Samuel Philip St Clare Raymond who, together with his wife Mabel Astell, created intimate gardens enclosed by yew hedges close to the house. The site remains (2000) in single private ownership.

Belchamp Hall stands in the little Essex village of Belchamp Water, in a secluded rural setting c 6km south of Sudbury close to the Suffolk/Essex border. The c 9ha site sits on the north side of the Belchamp Brook valley, the ground falling slightly from west to east. It is bounded to the north-west and north-east by Hall Road, and to the south-east and south-west by farmland.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES
The Hall is approached from the east-south-east, through late C18 stone and rubble gate piers (listed grade II) set opposite the village church of St Mary. The piers are flanked by short curving walls capped with wrought-iron railings. The c 80m long straight drive leads to a circular carriage drive below the south-east front and surrounds a lawn set with a central sundial. A second drive enters the grounds from Hall Road, c 100m to the north-east of the Hall, where the boundary is formed by a brick and rubble wall. Gate piers surmounted by iron heraldic emblems (listed grade II together with the boundary wall) flank the drive which passes the stable block before turning south-east and south to join the main carriage drive below the south-east front.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING
Belchamp Hall (listed grade II*) is a small country mansion built of red brick with a gabled peg-tile roof. The Hall has two storeys with attics, the entrance front on the south-east having a nine-bay facade with a central stone porch, surmounted by urns and added in the late C18, projecting over the door. The garden front to the south-west has a two-storey canted bay window, all that remains of a larger extension added during the late C19. Belchamp Hall was built for John Raymond in c 1720 to replace an earlier, possibly timber, C16 manor house.

The late C18 stable and coach house lie c 70m north-north-east of the Hall, beside the entrance off Hall Road. The two buildings, of red brick with blue headers, are linked by a single-storey block. In the centre of the stables peg-tile roof is a painted timber open-arched cupola with pyramid roof. These buildings were converted in the late C20 for office and commercial use.

Early signs of a lifelong interest in Victorian architecture, also influenced by the Architectural Review, appeared in a series written under the pseudonym of "Peter F. R. Donner": Pevsner's "Treasure Hunts" guided readers down selected London streets, pointing out architectural treasures of the 19th century.