Salle Park

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A mid-18th-century landscape park and 20th-century topiary garden.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Salle Park covers c 75ha and lies c 2km north of the small Norfolk town of Reepham, in the centre of the county. It enjoys a very rural setting and is almost entirely surrounded by dense perimeter plantations. The southern boundary is formed by the B1145 Reepham to Cawston road, whilst to the west and north are minor country roads, beyond which lies a mix of open farmland and woodland blocks. The ground at Salle is generally level with a slight fall close to the southern boundary.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

There are two lodges along the southern boundary and one in the north-east corner, while the main entrance is midway along the western boundary, c 400m west-north-west of the hall. Salle Lodge lies on the opposite side of the road to the entrance (outside the area here registered, as do all the lodges) and is an early C19 single-storey Gothic-style cottage. The west drive, shown to exist at the end of the C18 (Faden, 1797), runs east through ornamental woodland to the oval grassed forecourt on the north front of the hall. The lodges on the south boundary are also in the form of gothic cottages. Reepham Lodge, c 350m south-west of the hall, is aligned on a partially replanted oak avenue along which the drive runs before turning east to reach the north front. The avenue and drive originally extended through the north park, turning east at the boundary to join the north drive, this section now (1999) gone. Cawston Lodge, c 850m south-east of the hall, marks the entrance to the park in the south-east corner, the drive running north-west through a C20 plantation to reach the north front. Bluestone Lodge sits just beyond the north-east corner of the park, c 800m to the north-north-east of the hall, its drive no longer extant.

PRINCIPAL BUILDING

Salle Park is a country house in the domestic Palladian style, built of red brick with a black pantile roof and sitting south of centre of its park. It is a double pile of two-and-a-half storeys, with two two-storey service blocks linked by single-storey wings. The north, entrance front has seven bays, the door marked by a central stone portico with entablature and pediment supported by two unfluted Ionic columns. The south, garden front is also of seven bays, with a central door leading onto a terrace with balustrade and steps. The hall was built in the early 1760s for Edward Hase (architect unknown) and was extended by the addition of the east and west wings in the early C20 for Sir Woolmer White.

GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS

The gardens at Salle lie on the south front of the hall and comprise a formal lawn bordered to the south by a curved ha-ha and planted with an axial avenue of clipped yews extending for c 150m from the hall to the ha-ha. The lawn is surrounded by a perimeter walk which is flanked to east and west by tree and shrub planting. The area to the west is the most extensive, running up to the main north/south avenue. A path lined with mid C19 lime trees leads south-west through this area of pleasure ground, across the avenue and on to the walled kitchen garden on the southern boundary, on the north side of which lies the icehouse.

PARK

Aerial photographs show that Salle Park is almost entirely enclosed by woodland blocks or belts of trees, leaving vistas across open parkland with scattered mature trees to the north and south of the hall. The western part of the park is presently (1999) under the plough. A double avenue of oaks, partly replanted in the 1990s, runs north-north-east from the southern boundary through the park, passing c 100m to the west of the hall. This avenue is shown on Faden's map of 1797 aligned on the site of the old hall rather than Hase's new house and in 1841 Grigor describes some of the trees as very mature. The north park contains numerous small ponds of unknown origin; some may also have been features in the landscape which accompanied the old hall. Here also lies the mid C19 Park Cottage close the northern boundary. The park is more densely treed to the south of the hall, some of the plantations being of mid C20 origin.

KITCHEN GARDEN

The walled kitchen garden lies c 350m south-west of the hall, on the southern boundary of the park. Of mid C18 date, it was built at the same time as the present house and originally covered just over 1 acre (c 0.4ha) of land. The OS 1st edition 6" map published in 1885 shows its elaborate quartered layout, with an orchard to the south, beside the Garden House. The 3rd edition of 1928 shows the layout much simplified but the Garden House still standing.

REFERENCES

J Grigor, The Eastern Arboretum (1841)

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North-east Norfolk and Norwich (1962), p 309

J Kenworthy-Browne et al, Burke's and Savills Guide to Country Houses III, (1981), pp 178-9

Salle Park, (University of East Anglia report around 1990)

T Williamson, The archaeology of the landscape park, BAR British Series 268 (1998), pp 274-5

Maps

Road Order for Salle, 1792 (Road Order Box 3, p 370), (Norfolk Record Office)

W Faden, A new topographical map of the county of Norfolk, 1797 (Norfolk Record Office)

A Bryant, Map of the county of Norfolk, 1826 (Norfolk Record Office)

Tithe map for Sall parish, 1841 (385), (Norfolk Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1885; 2nd edition published 1907; 3rd edition published 1928

Archival items

Richard Joderell's memorandum book, 1808-15, (MC 65/1), (Norfolk Record Office)

Aerial phoptographs (Norfolk Aerial Survey Collection)

Description written: September 1999

Edited: March 2001