NHER 30494 (Designed Landscape record) - Little Barwick Park

The house (NHER 20953) which Barwick park surrounds was built in 1742 on the site of the deserted medieval settlement of Little Barwick (NHER 1924). The park itself covers an area of about 28 hectares. Road closure orders for 1792 show a number of public roads were to be closed, probably directly in relation to the creation of the park. The park is shown on Faden's 1797 map (S2); it depicts a substantial area of woodland in the east, but suggests that the rest of the area was still divided into fields. A number of trees seem to survive from the pre-park landscape especially along the lines of the closed roads. The tithe map (S3) shows the house surrounded by pasture and woodland, covering much the same area as on Faden (S2). The pasture area around the house was still subdivided by boundaries. These areas of pasture were screened from the wider agricultural landscape by tree belts and plantations. The house was screened from these areas of pasture on the west by an internal tree belt. The tithe map (S3) also shows an elongated linear plantation in the southern part of the park, designed as an avenue. Ordnance Survey First Edition (S4) and Second Edition (S5) show a very similar pattern of land use to that depicted on the Tithe map (S3). Some changes, however, had been made including the disappearance of some of the internal divisions, and the avenue had become simply a linear plantation. The Ordnance Survey 1985 1:10,000 map (S6) shows large ha ha across southern area of park.
See (S1) for more information. Also see historic maps (S2-S6) for more details.
E. Rose (NLA), 16 March 1994.
Updated by E. Nicholl (UEA), 8 November 2011. Amended [1] H. Hamilton (HES), 02 October 2025.

October 2025. Northwest Norfolk Aerial Investigation and Mapping (AI&M) Project.
Earthworks visible within Little Barwick park probably relate to former fields and roads, of presumed medieval to post medieval date, which were removed by the creation of the park (as described above), and also post medieval parkland features such as plantation banks. They have been mapped predominantly from visualised lidar data (S7), and it is likely that many of these earthworks still survive. Possible additional features are visible on aerial photographs (such as S8-S9), but it is difficult to distinguish older features from those relating to modern activity and most have been omitted from the mapping. No features relating to the deserted medieval settlement site of Little Barwick/Middleton (NHER 1924) were identified, but it is possible that some of the earthworks mapped within the park (such as the cluster at TF 8031 3614, to the north of Barwick House) could relate to this earlier site.
S. Tremlett (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 2 October 2025.