THORINGTON HALL, SOME FOUR MILES SOUTH-EAST OF HALESWORTH, was the home of the Bence family from the end of the seventeenth century until its demise in the late 1940s. It replaced an earlier house on a different site, which was demolished in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

Early in the seventeenth century Thorington was acquired by Sir Edward Coke, who was Chief Justice of the King's Bench and from whom the Earls of Leicester are descended. In 1691 the Coke family, having inherited Holkham in Norfolk from a cousin, sold the estate to the Bence family. The Bences were originally merchants in Aldeburgh but in the seventeenth century built up considerable manorial and landed interests in Suffolk. In addition to Thorington these included the manors of Carlton, Ringsfield and Benhall and the Heveningham estate, which was sold in 1752 to Sir Joshua Vanneck.

In 1735 Thorington was owned by Alexander Bence, and on his death was inherited by his daughter Ann. In 1762 she married George Golding of Poslingford in the west of the county, when the estate formed part of their marriage settlement. Ann Golding had no children, and on her husband's death in 1803 the property passed to the Reverend Bence Sparrow. Sparrow was descended from Alexander Bence's brother Robert whose daughter Anne had married Robert Sparrow of Worlingham. In 1804 he changed his name to Bence in compliance with Ann Golding’s testamentary wishes, and five years later conveyed the estate to his son, Lt Col. Henry Bence Bence.

In 1815 Henry Bence Bence married Elizabeth Starkie, the co-heiress of Nicholas Starkie of Huntroyde near Preston in Lancashire and East Riddlesden Hall near Keighley in Yorkshire. She brought substantial wealth to the Bence family, wealth that may have made possible the building of a new mansion at Thorington. Henry and Elizabeth Bence’s second son Edward was to inherit £130,000 from a member of his mother's family, enabling the Kentwell Hall estate at Long Melford to be bought for him in 1838.

WRITING IN 1819, in his Excursions through the county of Suffolk, Cromwell reported that ‘the old hall is now demolished and a new one erecting, about half a mile from the site, by Henry Bence, esq’.