Historical buildings on the estate

There are a number of Grade II listed buildings on Trimley Estate.  Grimston Hall for example is an early 18th century hall with timber frame and pantiled roof.  The site was previously the home to the Cavendish family from mid-14th century to the end of the 16th.  Thomas Cavendish, the last of the family, was the second English circumnavigator of the world 1586-8. There are visible earthworks and features of a post medieval garden adjacent to the hall. To the east of the hall are remnants of the moat.

South of Grimston Hall, is an early 16th century farm building, probably originally a stable, with 18th century alterations and additions.  This is the only surviving building of the farmstead associated with Grimston Hall, which was replaced by the present farmhouse around 1700.

Searsons Farmhouse, Cordy’s Lane, is a fine example of a 17th century farmhouse, timber framed with colour-washed brick cladding and plain tile roof.  To the southwest of Searsons Farm there is an early 17th century timber framed and weather boarded barn.

The Trimley Estate at war

North of Searsons Farm there are the remains of a World War II and Cold War Heavy Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battery and associated camp. The site consisted of four embanked gun emplacements, with a central embanked command post. A concrete road linked the battery itself to a domestic site 150m to the south. The domestic area consisted of numerous Nissen huts and buildings of various sizes. The former Trimley Heath, Ground Control Intercept Radar station is in Trimley St Martin.

On Fagbury Cliff, above Felixstowe Port, there is a World War II hexagonal pillbox with a roofed entrance and blast wall on its southern side. It is located on slightly higher ground with an unrestricted view north over Trimley Marshes. There is also a Type 23 pillbox 50 metres from Hill Cottage Track, near Morston Hall, Trimley St Mary with a fire trajectory over the River Orwell and a rectangular pillbox based on the ‘Suffolk square’ design off Howlett Way south of the road leading from the A45 roundabout.