Hoveton Hall

"[4] The builder of Hoveton Hall was Mrs Christabell Burroughes who commissioned Humphry Repton[5] to construct the new mansion in 1809.

The couple lived at Burlingham Hall for some time but in 1803 at the early age of 43 James died leaving Christabell to care for seven sons and one daughter.

[9] She remained at Burlingham Hall for several years until the death of her father in 1807, when she inherited from him the Hoveton estate with its old manor house.

Possibly because her eldest son, Henry Negus Burroughes (1791-1872) (later an MP for Norfolk), then a minor, was due to reach his majority of 21 in 1812 and thereupon inherit his paternal estate of Burlingham Hall, she decided to build a new house for herself at Hoveton.

She suffered a severe loss three years later when two of her sons James and Edward, students at Cambridge University, died within a week of each other due to an outbreak of an infectious fever.

John Gurney moved to his ancestral home Earlham Court a few years later and died there in 1856 at the age of only 44 leaving Laura to care for the children.

After John Gurney quitted Hoveton Hall it became the home of the Reverend Randall Burroughes (1829-1872) who moved there with his family.

The new owner was Geoffrey Fowell Buxton (1852-1929), a director of Barclay Bank and a soldier, the second in command of the 1st Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment.