Meetings, conferences, corporate hospitality, summer parties and team-building days can be organized at Kentwell Hall for up to 100 guests in the Great Hall, 120 in the Overcroft and 500 in a marquee set against the house. Kentwell is a moated Tudor house in Long Melford, Suffolk, with more than 30 acres of its own gardens and parkland.
Seminars and company events
The Great Hall is the room for a meeting or a conference, with space for up to 100 people. The Overcroft, an oak timber-framed room, seats up to 120 and works for a lunch, a dinner or a larger presentation. Spaces are arranged to match the brief, and the events team helps with planning, budgeting and organizing the day, from the first site visit to the event itself.
The grounds suit programs that mix work with time outdoors. The parkland and gardens host summer parties, relaxed breaks between sessions and team-building activities, including more adventurous formats. Kentwell has been open to the public for more than 50 years and is known for events that recreate daily life in Tudor times, an angle that can give a company day a theme of its own.
Rooms and capacities
Indoors, the two main rooms are the Great Hall, for up to 100 guests, and the Overcroft, for up to 120 seated. Outdoors, marquees can be placed with the house and gardens as a backdrop for up to 500 guests, which suits a summer party, a product launch or a large dinner. The walled gardens take smaller marquees for a more private event, and the wider parkland is used for activities.
Catering
Kentwell can provide the catering and the marquees itself, or work with the suppliers you prefer. This helps when a company already has a caterer it trusts or wants a specific menu, and the events team can coordinate either option.
History and setting
The present house is structurally Tudor and succeeded the Kentwell recorded in the Domesday Book of 1085. Moats surround the house, and the Moat House, a 15th-century service building rising from the water, still holds a working dairy, bakery, brewhouse and stillroom. The gardens include walled gardens, wide lawns, massive clipped yews, espaliered fruit trees and giant cedars, and the park and garden are listed Grade II*. A rare-breeds farm opens on days without events.
Getting there
The nearest railway station is Sudbury, about 4 miles from the gates. The house sits at the end of a 1 km avenue from High Street, Long Melford, with free parking at the top of the avenue and accessible spaces closer to the entrance. Buses between Sudbury and Bury St Edmunds stop in the village, about 25 minutes on foot from the house, so most groups arrive by coach or car.
