Wolterton Hall is an Georgian

Georgian architecture

Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 country house in the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county of Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

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The Hall was built by Thomas Ripley

Thomas Ripley (architect)

-Career:He first kept a coffee house in Wood Street, off Cheapside, London and in 1705 was admitted to the Carpenter's Company. An ex-carpenter, he rose by degrees to become an architect and Surveyor in the royal Office of Works...

 in the 1720s for Horatio Walpole

Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton

Horatio Walpole, 1st Baron Walpole, PC , English diplomatist, was a son of Robert Walpole of Houghton, Norfolk, and a younger brother of the Prime Minister of Great Britain Sir Robert Walpole....

, politician, diplomat and younger brother of Britain's first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

. Other members of the family made alterations in the early 19th century, including adding the wing and enclosing the Park.
On the death of the 3rd Earl

Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford

Horatio Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford , styled Lord Walpole between 1809 and 1822, was a British peer and politician.-Background:...

 in 1858, the Hall was abandoned and his son moved to Mannington. The property was restored when the Earl moved back in 1905.

The present Lord Walpole inherited the property in 1989. Since then there has been a programme of reorganization, conservation and research into the history of the family, Hall and Park using rile extensive and previously neglected archives. The Park contains evidence of the village of Wolterton and its round church tower

Round-tower church

Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, almost solely in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, 6 in Essex, 3 in Sussex and 2 each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshire. There is evidence of about twenty round-tower...

 can still be seen. The 18th century walled garden is now let and run as a smallholding

Smallholding

A smallholding is a farm of small size.In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of...

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Located near Erpingham

Erpingham

Erpingham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.It covers an area of and had a population of 541 in 210 households as of the 2001 census.For the purposes of local government, it falls within the district of North Norfolk....

, the park is open daily, and the Hall is open on Friday afternoons from late April through October.

External links

• Wolterton Park & Hall - official site