Park probably laid out in the C18 with early C18 gardens by the Revd Dr Cox Macro which no longer survive.

Little Haugh Park is not registered for the following principal reasons:

Design interest:

* the designed landscape is fairly modest in form, representing a simple laying out of parkland with some avenues and interspersed trees, a walled garden and a lake;

* this limited repertoire does not compare favourably to registered examples which often display carefully orchestrated visions containing more impressive lakes, ornamental bridges, ha-has, tree-lined avenues, pleasure grounds, planned vistas or eye-catchers etc.

Survival:

* it has undergone numerous changes which have affected its historic integrity, namely the infilling of the moat and the considerable enlargement of the lake in the C20. None of the pleasure grounds or gardens that presumably surrounded the Hall have survived which has had an impact on its aesthetic quality;

* the walled garden, built sometime between 1841 and 1884, is a late example, and has been rebuilt in places, including the replacement of the Victorian greenhouse, causing a considerable loss of its original fabric;

* the association between Little Haugh Hall and Cox Macro is significant but the exact nature of his designs is unknown and it does not appear that his work has survived, other than perhaps the viewing mound which is very likely to be of C18 date.

Little Haugh Hall was built by Borowdale Mileson Esq. (1607-1678) who purchased the property in 1641. The estate was then sold by his grandson Mileson Edgar (1677-1713) to Thomas Macro Jun., the wealthy apothecary or grocer who lived at Cupola House in nearby Bury St Edmunds. Macro seems to have intended the Hall for his son, the Revd Dr Cox Macro (1683-1767), who was a student of medicine at Cambridge, chaplain to George II, and a distinguished antiquary and virtuoso. The Hall as it then appeared is captured in a painting by Peter Tillemans (1684-1734), a Flemish painter who is best known for his works on sporting and topographical subjects. From 1708 until his death, Tillemans lived and worked in England, forging a friendship with Cox Macro with whom he was staying at Little Haugh Hall when he died.

Tillemans’ painting (undated but late 1710s/ early 1720s) shows the view from the point just to north of the little brick bridge (Grade II listed) crossing the Black Bourn, to the east of the house. In the foreground is a stream and beyond it a straight stretch of water and some small trees, which must represent the small moated site (now mostly infilled and covered with bushes) shown on historic maps on the west side of the stream. This is likely to have been a moated orchard associated with the C17 Hall. Beyond this, Tillemans’ painting shows a group of buildings, including the rectangular, three-storey brick Hall which has dormer windows in the roof and a small cupola. A timber-framed farmhouse is shown very close to the south side of the Hall, which Macro presumably removed, along with farm buildings associated with a walled yard to the north-east, including a tall rectangular dovecote, which have since been rebuilt. This layout is probably the one that Macro inherited from previous owners; his own improvements do not seem to be shown.

Around 1715, Macro set about altering the Hall, inserting sash windows, rendering the elevations, and probably also reducing it from three storeys to the present two when he inserted the elegant staircase with a domed ceiling. Samuel Tymms, writing in 1859, described Macro's house as 'one of the best specimens at that time of an embellished residence of a country gentleman of easy but not affluent fortune'. Tymms also mentions that Macro 'laid out around it extensive pleasure grounds'. Although little evidence of these remains, documentary sources provide some idea of the improvements he made. These began in 1715, for in that year Thomas Macro mentions that his son had made 'alterations in the garden having sent down abundance of Greenes [ie. evergreens]'. Another painting by Tillemans, executed around 1733 (now in Norwich Castle Museum), of Cox's two children shows them standing in bosky wilderness, with formal clipped evergreen hedges and a classical style summerhouse in the background. An account book records payments to a carpenter for 'framing a bridge’ and for 'a large Deal seat for ye Garden’. A letter from a friend to Cox's son Edward, about 1743, mentions that 'I was in our walks this Evening: but think the prospect of them inferior to that from Ipswich or Mr Thurston's Ponds, that they yield much to the Mazes Meanders of Little Haugh'. Another letter written in 1743 to Edward Macro says, 'I imagine Dr Macro's taste will quickly render Norton a habitation worthy of the Muses'.

The earliest surviving map showing the layout of the designed landscape is the Tithe Map of 1841. The moat to the east of the Hall is named as ‘Garden’; the surviving lime avenue to the west of the Hall is named as ‘The Walk Plantation’; the pasture to the south of this is named as ‘Garden Meadow’; and to the west of this, a large oval pond in what is now called Basin Plantation is shown, as now, in a belt of woodland. Low earthworks still survive in this woodland and probably represent paths or even sites of garden structures. The Tithe Map also shows, somewhat indistinctly, the principal earthwork survival of a large conical mound on the south-west corner. This mound has sometimes been taken for a round barrow or burial mound of Roman or earlier date, but its steep sides and the presence of brick and tile rubble on the flat summit indicate an C18 prospect mound for viewing the garden and surrounding countryside. The mound is now crowned by large trees, but rubble visible around it makes it likely that there was originally a summerhouse or gazebo here. To the east of the Hall, the Tithe Map also shows the broad serpentine shape of the stream, called the Black Bourn, to the south of the brick bridge.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1884 shows a similar layout except that the broadness of the stream appears to have been enhanced into more of a lake, and a walled garden is shown to the north of the Hall with a glasshouse along the north wall. On the six-inch OS map of 1903, what was then considered to be parkland is shaded in grey: namely, the area to the south of the Hall in between Basin Plantation and Stanton Street, and the field on the south-west side of this. The revised third edition OS of 1953 still shows the moat which, at some point since, has been infilled.

In 1947 the estate was put up for sale and a description of the park and gardens was included in the sale particulars. This states that ‘on the south and west fronts are attractive terraced Lawns flanked by flower borders, clipped yews, copper beech and other trees. The walk through the Lime Avenue is particularly attractive. […] The Island Garden, surrounded by the waters of the Little Ouse, has great charm with its flower borders, flowering shrubs and fir trees. The main walled kitchen garden is well maintained and well stocked with vegetables, wall and soft fruits. There are three heated glasshouses and a heated frame.’

Park probably laid out in the C18 with early C18 gardens by the Revd Dr Cox Macro which no longer survive.

LOCATION, SETTING, LANDFORM, BOUNDARIES AND AREA

Little Haugh Park is situated to the north-west of the village of Norton. It is bounded on the east side by Stanton Street, and on the south side by Thurston Road. To the west the boundary is arable land with hedgerows leading to Pakenham Woods, and to north it is arable land with hedgerows.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

Historic Ordnance Survey maps show a straight drive running east to west between the Hall and Stanton Street. Due to access issues, the entrance has, in recent years, been moved slightly southwards and new entrance gates built in the early C21. The drive then curves northwards to join the historic drive which is carried over the Black Bourn by the Grade II listed red brick bridge of C16 or early C17 date. This has chamfered round arches with a central pier and parapets along a humped causeway.

There is separate access to the farmstead further northwards from Stanton Street.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

The Grade II* listed Little Haugh Hall is situated in the north part of the estate. It was a former manor house built around the mid-C17, altered around 1715 by the antiquary Cox Macro, and then much remodelled around 1830 for Peter Huddleston. The principal east elevation is stuccoed brick with a band above the first-floor windows and a parapet with a bold moulded cornice, under a low-pitched, hipped slate roof. It has an eight-window main range, and a slightly set-back range to the right with five windows and a semi-circular full-height bay at the centre. The Greek Ionic portico porch spans three bays with columns supporting a flat entablature and open balustrading. Inside, there is high-quality work from about 1730-1740 in the entrance hall, staircase area and adjacent rooms, considered to be the finest interior of that date in the county.

The farmstead to the north-east of the Hall consists of C19 buildings of flint and gault brick, and two large agricultural steel buildings.

ORNAMENTAL GROUNDS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

The formal gardens are on the south and west sides of the Hall. A small lawn is behind the Hall on the west side, along with a swimming pool and tennis court; and beyond this a straight grass path leads through an area of wooded pasture to the Basin Plantation. On the south side, a haha enables an uninterrupted view over the parkland, with an eyecatcher to the south against the backdrop of Bridgeclose Plantation, in the form of a classical summerhouse built in the early C21.

PARK

The park, which is laid out to the south-east and south-west of the Hall, retains the character of parkland, interspersed with a fair proportion of the mature deciduous trees shown on the historic Ordnance Survey maps. These are mainly oaks, sycamores, and some copper beeches. A line of trees shown on the 1841 and 1884 maps, running north-south in the south-west area of parkland; and another line of trees running at right angles to this, shown on the 1884 map, only partially survive.

To the east of the Hall, the Black Bourn stream runs through the park in a north-south direction, and through Bridgeclose Plantation at the southernmost edge. Cartographic evidence shows that it was widened into a serpentine lake sometime between 1841 and 1884, and again enlarged with an island at some point before 1946 when it is described in the sale particulars. To the east of the Hall (on the west side of the lake near the bridge), the rectangular moat shown in a wooded area on historic maps and listed in the 1946 sale particulars as ‘0.683 acre', has since been infilled.

To the north-west of the Hall, a lime avenue (shown on the 1841 Tithe Map) runs in an east-west direction linking the kitchen garden to Basin Plantation. The eastern half of the avenue has been replanted with lime trees. Basin Plantation (also shown on the 1841 map) contains an oval basin of water in a dense plantation of oak, sycamore, beech, elder and hawthorn.

At the north-east corner of the plantation is a historic earthwork, shown on the 1841 map and labelled on the 1884 OS map as ‘Tumulus’. It is in the form of a large conical mound of loose earth, overgrown with trees, measuring 27m in diameter and 4.5m in height. The sharply defined top is flat, about 4m in diameter, and is now crowned with large trees. The mound cannot be defined with certainty, but the most likely explanation is that it is an C18 mount or viewing platform associated with Little Haugh Hall.

To the north of the mound are two large aircraft hangars and a wide grass runway which curves round to the west and beyond the area that was assessed (2024).

KITCHEN GARDEN

The walled kitchen garden to the north of the Hall is not shown on the Tithe Map of 1841 but appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1884 with a path running around the inner edge. A shed is attached to the outer side of the north wall and a greenhouse is on the inner side. The greenhouse has since been rebuilt. The walled garden has an approximately rectangular plan and is of several phases and materials. The oldest parts are the short west wall of flint rubble with brick buttresses and half-round coping, and the long north wall of red brick laid in Flemish bond. This is marked in places by the nailing of fruit trees. The east and south walls have been rebuilt in dark red/ brown brick, and a new brick shed has been built on the inner side of the south wall.