Layer Marney was intended to be the palace which surpassed both in size and grandeur Cardinal Wolsey's Hampton Court. It was started in 1515 by Henry Marney, 1st Baron Marney, KG (c. 1447 – 4 May 1523) and Lord Privy Seal to Henry VIII, but he died before it could be completed. His son, John, 2nd Lord Marney, continued the building work but died just two years later, leaving no male heirs to continue the family line or the construction. What was completed was the main range measuring three hundred feet long, the principal gatehouse that is some eighty feet tall, that is eight storeys in the flanking semi-octagonal turrets, a fine array of outbuildings, and a new church. The original intention was to have a large range of buildings built around a large open square courtyard with the gatehouse being the imposing carriage entrance, it would have been immense and some idea of how it would have looked can be seen in a scale model housed in the gatehouse.
It remains the tallest example of a Tudor gatehouse in Britain, contemporaneous with East Barsham Manor and Sutton Place in Surrey, with which latter building it shares the rare combination of brick and terracotta construction. It is a beautiful Tudor building surrounded by formal gardens and parkland with magnificent views to the Blackwater Estuary. Built of soft red brick, with a delightful warm tone, Layer Marney Tower achieves an extraordinary synthesis of grandeur and intimacy, that has delighted visitors ever since the Marneys began construction. In building on this scale the Marneys were following the example of their monarch, Henry VIII, who believed that a building should reflect the magnificence of its owner. Henry Marney as Lord Privy Seal, Captain of the Bodyguard and many other influential positions clearly intended to display his status through his new building. Many other courtiers wished to do the same, and just as they rivalled each other for influence and power at court, so they tried to out-do each other in the splendour of their buildings. The Marneys enthusiastically entered this game of one upmanship, building tall, with lavish use of terracotta and stucco, together with decorative detailing derived from Italy.
The tomb of Henry, 1st Lord Marney is perhaps the high point of all that was built, combining beauty, innovation and a lightness of touch and can be found in the church which he had built.
The Tower is Grade I listed and can be found at post code CO5 9US. There has been some C20th restoration and a few small additions, there was some considerable damage in the Great Earthquake of 1884.
There are several chimney stacks on the building ranging from 'ordinary' octagonals with top and bottom coving and lower string courses to the inside of the towers, out of sight, to pairs of octagonal 'barley twists' in more exposed positions on the towers and on the west wing, and at the extreme end of the east range. There is an unusual quad stack to the north of the west wing, it is four plain octagonal stacks co-joined with simple arched design and a coved top.
The tower is a private residence but parts of it are open to the public each year from the end of March until the end of September usually from 1200 to 1700, actual times, days and dates vary yearly, however, and can be found on the web site along with admission costs. See: visit Layer Marney Tower