Layer Marney Tower, near Colchester, Essex; and The gatehouse at Arwarton [sic.] Hall, Erwarton, Suffolk (illustrated)

Layer Marney Tower was built in the first half of the reign of Henry VIII, for Henry, 1st Lord Marney (d.1523). As Lord Privy Seal and Captain of the Bodyguard, Marney clearly intended to display his status and wealth through the magnificence and splendour of his house. After the death of the 2nd Lord Marney and with no male heirs to continue the family line, the house passed into the ownership of the Treasurer to the Royal Household and Governor of the Kings Posts, Sir Brian Tuke and it was during this time that Queen Elizabeth I was reputed to have stayed there.

One of the first great English houses to be built in brick, Erwarton Hall, on the Shotley peninsula, was built in 1549 for Sir Philip Calthorpe, husband of the aunt of Anne Boleyn. Anne spent some of her childhood at the Hall and her heart is reputed to be buried close by at Erwarton Church. The post-reformation gothic gatehouse was built approximately one hundred years later.