Hoveton Hall

Hoveton Hall, Hoveton in Norfolk is an historic house of significance on the English Heritage Register. It is a well-preserved Regency house of gault brick with a slate roof and was built between 1809 and 1812 by Humphry Repton, the well-known architect and landscape designer. Today it is part of an estate of 120 acres of gardens and parkland and 450 acres of arable land as well as picturesque woodland. The gardens are open to the public during part of the year and there are facilities available for accommodation and special events particularly weddings.

There was a manor house called Hoveton Hall on the property which was demolished when the new house was built in 1809. The site of this old manor is unclear as no part of the building remains. However Basil Cozens-Hardy analysed the existing maps and data and concluded.

"It would seem that the original hall was near the kitchen garden in the park, as a map and schedule of about 1840 (see map below) calls the field to the south-west " the Old Hall Close”. Moreover in Faden’s map of 1797 (see map on right) the hall is shown at this point with an avenue running down to the road."

The originator of Hoveton Hall was Christabell Burroughes who commissioned Humphry Repton to construct the mansion in 1809.

Christabell was born in 1764. Her father was Henry Negus (1734-1807) a solicitor who worked in Bungay, Suffolk but who also owned Hoveton Hall. The Negus family had for a long time been wealthy landowners in the Hoveton area.

In 1789 Christabell married James Burkin Burroughes who had inherited Burlingham Hall in Norfolk (now demolished). The couple lived at Burlingham Hall for some time but unfortunately in 1803 at the age of only 43 James died leaving Christabell to care for seven sons and one daughter.

She remained at the Hall for several years. In 1807 her father Henry Negus died and as she was his sole heir she became owner of Hoveton Hall with its existing old manor house. Possibly because her eldest son Henry Negus Burroughes was to turn 21 in 1812 and therefore inherit Burlingham Hall, she decided to build her own house at Hoveton. By 1812 the new house was complete and she moved there with her younger children. She suffered a severe loss three years later when two of her sons James and Edward who had been sent to Cambridge University died there within a week of each other because of an outbreak of an infectious fever.

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