The crypt and cellars, and possibly the
kitchen and buttery, were portions of the original house owned in 1358
by Robert Herdegrey, Burgess in Parliament and Bailiff of the City,
and the present hall, with its groined porch and oriel window, was
erected later over the original fourteenth-century cellars. It was
inhabited by a succession of merchants and chief men of Norwich, and
at the beginning of the sixteenth century passed into the family of
Sotherton. The merchant's mark of Nicholas Sotherton is painted on the
roof of the hall. You can see this fine hall with its screen and
gallery and beautifully-carved woodwork. The present Jacobean
staircase and gallery, big oak window, and doorways leading into the
garden are later additions made by Francis Cook, grocer of Norwich,
who was mayor of the city in 1627. The house probably took its name
from the family of Le Strange, who settled in Norwich in the sixteenth
century. In 1610 the Sothertons conveyed the property to Sir le
Strange Mordant, who sold it to the above-mentioned Francis Cook. Sir
Joseph Paine came into possession just before the Restoration, and we
see his initials, with those of his wife Emma, and the date 1659, in
the spandrels of the fire-places in some of the rooms. This beautiful
memorial of the merchant princes of Norwich, like many other old
houses, fell into decay.
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