File:St Leonard's Church, Mundford, Norfolk - Organ - geograph.org.uk - 822783.jpg

Two hatchments for two successive owners of Lynford Hall, Mundford. Text from: www.breckslandscape.co.uk [1]: "The Lynford Hall estate passed to George Eyres in 1805 and then in 1827 to Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Baronet (1798-1855), a passionate fox-hunter and Master of the Quorn Hunt, 1847 to 1856. Sutton married Mary Elizabeth Burton (1797-1842), elder daughter of Benjamin Burton, of Burton Hall, County Carlow, Ireland (a second cousin patrilineally of the 2nd Marquess Conyngham). In 1856, a year after Sutton's death, the 18th century house and grounds were sold to w:Stephens Lyne-Stephens (1801-1860). Mrs Lyne Stephens remained in the house following her husband’s death in 1860. The hall was restored, after damage by fire in 1928, by James Calder in the 1930s before being sold to the Forestry Commission. It returned to private ownership in the 1960s and has been run as a hotel since then. The Old Hall was originally built around 1500, and was used as a farmhouse until the 18th century. Following the change of ownership in 1717, a second hall was built between 1717 and 1720, the Old Hall continuing to be used as a farmhouse. Further alterations were made, including those by C.R. Cockrell in 1827, when Sir Richard Sutton bought the property. The various alterations made to the hall were concealed by an outer casing of white brick. The 18th century building was demolished in 1863. The current building was completed in 1862 on a site around 400m north of the 18th century house.

Text from: Farrer, Edmund, Church Heraldry of Norfolk, Vol 2 (1889), p.157 [Farrer, Edmund, Church Heraldry of Norfolk, Vol 2 (1889)]:

• Left (for Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Baronet (1798-1855)): Quarterly of 4, with Crest: A wolf's head erased gules, Motto: Toujours Prest:
  • 1&4: Argent, a canton sable (Sutton);
  • 2&3: Argent, a cross flory sable (Lexington);

Impaling: Per pale azure and purpure, a cross engrailed or between four roses argent (Burton of Burton Hall, County Carlow, Ireland also of Burton Baronets of Pollacton, County Carlow) (Burke, Sir Bernard, The General Armory, London, 1884, p.151).

The Burton family was descended from Thomas Burton (d.1666) of Eastwicke, Ellesmere, Shropshire. The senior line appears to have been seated at Longner Hall, Shropshire, occupied by Burton family since the 14th century, still the home of the Burton family today. His descendant Benjamin Burton, MP for Dublin, a banker, purchased Burton Hall, County Carlow, in 1712. Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Baronet (1799-1855) of Norwood Park, Nottinghamshire, married Mary Elizabeth Burton (1797-1842), a daughter of Benjamin Burton of Burton Hall, County Carlow, Ireland and of Walcot House, Stamford, Lincolnshire. His son Sir Richard Sutton, 4th Bt (1821-1878) married secondly Harriet Anne Burton, daughter of William Fitzwilliam Burton. (Source: https://www.thepeerage.com/p5059.htm#i50584)

• Right: Quarterly of 4 (for w:Stephens Lyne-Stephens (1801-1860) of Lynford Hall, Mundford and of Grove House, Roehampton, Surrey and of 32 Portman Street, London, and of the hôtel Molé (formerly the hôtel de La Vaupalière) at 85 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris):
  • 1&4: Or, on a chevron gules between three demi-lions rampant sable a cross-crosslet argent between two towers of the field (Stephens) (Burke, Sir Bernard, The General Armory, London, 1884, p.633 "Lyne-Stephens", exemplified 1826 to Charles Lyne, Esq, of Devonshire Place, London, and Weymouth, upon his assuming by royal licence the surname of Stephens)
  • 2&3: Gules, three buck's heads erased argent each charged on the neck with an ermine spot sable on a chief of the second a cross-crosslet azure between two griffin's heads erased sable (Lyne); a similar coat (Gules, three buck's heads couped argent on a chief of the second two griffin's heads erased sable) was granted in 1554 to Richard Lyne "of Chichester, Sussex, and Ringwood, Hampshire". (Burke, Sir Bernard, The General Armory, London, 1884, p.633 "Lyne-Stephens").

See: Jenifer Roberts, Glass: The Strange History of the Lyne Stephens Fortune, 2003. w:Stephens Lyne-Stephens (1801-1860) of Lynford Hall (which he purchased in 1856, with 8,000 acres), was lord of the manor of East and West Hall in this parish (i.e. Mundford) (per Farrer). He was the only son of Charles Lyne (afterwards Lyne Stephens) of Pole Vellyn, Cornwall and Wilhelmina Augusta Tonkin, da. of William Tonkin of Lisbon. His Lyne ancestors had long been resident in Cornwall. In 1826 his father, whose occupation is unknown, took the additional name of Stephens in memory of his cousin, John James Stephens, a merchant at Lisbon, who had named him as the residuary legatee of his will, which was proved under £600,000 (Source: History of Parliament biog[2]). Cambridge University Heraldic & Genealogical Society[3]: "The Story of an Unusual Coat of Arms" What links one of the largest industrial fortunes of the eighteenth century – a fortune made in a glass factory in the wilds of northern Portugal – with the Lynford Estate in Norfolk and the building of a church in Cambridge at a cost (in to-day's values) of almost five million pounds? The Society's speaker on May 18th, 2006 will be Jenifer Roberts who is not the first person to have heard the legend of a vast family fortune which melted away down the centuries but, perhaps, is the first to have written a fascinating book about her researches. Her talk will follow the fortune through several generations of two families, Lyne and Stephens, who combined their names and coats of arms in 1828. It is a true story of rags to riches: how the illegitimate son of a servant girl became the richest industrialist in Europe; how, in the next generation, the son of a Cornish clergyman became the richest commoner in England and how, sixty years later, a French ballerina provided the funds of almost five million pounds (in to-day's values) to build the Catholic Church in Cambridge.

Publicity material for book: The Lyne Stephens fortune was a major cause célèbre in Cornwall for almost a century, but its strange and dramatic story has never been told before. William Stephens (1731-1803) and John James Stephens, who made the fortune in Portugal, were grandsons of Lewis Stephens, vicar of Menheniot. Charles Lyne, who inherited their wealth, was born in Liskeard, son of John Lyne, rector of St. Ive and master of Liskeard Grammar School. And because the fortune was placed in chancery, many poor families in Cornwall were defrauded by con-men who offered to claim the fortune on payment of a fee. Families with the name of Stephens invented ancestors who had gone to Portugal and built glass factories; and even today, there are puzzled family historians whose pedigrees contain the names of the Stephens brothers and their parents, dropped fraudulently but hopefully into unconnected family trees. Now the story of the fortune has been told. It is a true rags-to-riches tale for, when a Cornish servant girl gave birth to an illegitimate son in May 1731, she little realised that he would become one of the richest industrialists in Europe. Her son, William Stephens, was a man of genius. He lived through the earthquake which destroyed Lisbon and became friends with the Marquis of Pombal, dictator of Portugal. Opening a glass factory in the village of Marinha Grande, he was granted a monopoly of glass supply and exemption from all taxes. Intelligent and charismatic, he charmed dictators, queens and princes into extending his privileges, allowing him to build up enormous wealth. In 1803, his fortune passed to his brother, John James, who steered the glass factory through the upheavals of the Peninsular War. The richest man in Lisbon (and one of the most eccentric), he held daily banquets in his mansion house but attended the dinners with only one shoelace to his shoes, his guests perched on chairs without seats, his footmen serving mustard from broken wineglasses. On his death, the massive fortune made in Marinha Grande transformed a cousin in England, Charles Lyne, into the richest commoner in the country. Later it passed into the hands of the widow of his son (w:Stephens Lyne-Stephens (1801-1860), of Lynford Hall, Mundford, Norfolk) a French ballerina who scandalised society by her sexual adventures, while the infamous Court of Chancery creamed off the wealth into the pockets of lawyers. This fascinating story, which spans two centuries, follows dramatic events in European history: a tale of earthquake, wars and revolution told through the lives of a strange and compelling mix of characters.