Exterior view

The house of Blickling seen today was built on the ruins of the old property by Sir Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and 1st Baronet, who bought Blickling in 1616. The architect of Hatfield House, Robert Lyming, is credited with the design of the current structure in Jacobean style.

Jacobean architecture is most readily associated with the large brick-built prodigy houses of the English ruling class; they include Audley End (c. 1603-16), Essex, Hatfield House (1607-12), Hertfordshire, and Blickling Hall (designed 1616-17), Norfolk. Extravagantly massed and silhouetted, early 17th-century country houses were frequently enlivened with arcades or loggias and ogee-capped towers; such features as balustrades and porches were often carved with Mannerist decorative motifs by Flemish or Flemish-trained masons, or by English masons working from pattern books.

The photo shows the south-west fa�ade of Blickling Hall.

View the ground floor plan of Hatfield House.