LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, AND SETTING Norton Place is located immediately north-west of the hamlet of Spital in the Street. It borders the Roman Road of Ermine Street, now the A15, on the western boundary of the estate. The north and south boundaries of the park are largely framed by shelter belts named (north) Top Walk and Bottom Walk, and (south) Long Screed and Halfmoon Plantation. The land falls to a gentle valley running west to east across the middle of the park, within which a stream fed by a spring west of Ermine Street has been dammed to form an upper and lower lake. Beyond the dam at the east end of the park is a woodland called Fishpond Bottom that carries the stream into Mellow's Beck. Where the plantations are less dense, giving some views of the surrounding agricultural land, boundaries are marked by fencing or, between the Halmoon Plantation and Fishpond Bottom, by a dry limestone wall.
The principal house (Grade I, NHLE entry 1359423) is located between the Top and Bottom Walks in the northern sector of the park, together with its ancillary structures and Grade II listed Coach House (NHLE entry 1064178).
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES The main entrance gate stands between two lodges with some classical detailing, all of which are Grade II listed and designed by John Carr (NHLE entry 1359424). They are positioned hard against Ermine Street at the western boundary of the Top Walk. The drive passes between the lodges and follows a sinuous route through mature woodland before breaking into the lawns that characterise the large central part of the park. The first view of the house is of the west elevation. The principal south elevation is gradually revealed as the drive winds between singly placed chestnut trees likely to date from the laying out of the park. Close to the house the drive turns to provide access to the coach house and ancillary structures at the rear, with a C20 diversion cutting across the ha-ha to do so.
A secondary access route exists between farm buildings north of the park boundary and the rear yard of the coach house.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING The house at Norton Place was designed by John Carr and completed in around 1776. It stands centrally in the northern part of the park, between the Top and Bottom Walks. It is two storeys with attics, faced in limestone, and the principal (south) elevation has bays arranged 2-3-2 with three windows below a pediment. The main entrance was moved to the west elevation in around 1830 by Lewis Vulliamy. Its relationship to the landscape is essentially unaltered since its original conception, with expansive views over the parkland, towards the water, and through a deliberate gap in the tree plantations to the south horizon. It is likely that a glimpse view of the bridge over the lake once existed, but this is now screened by trees around the water.
ORNAMENTAL GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The presiding character of the landscape emphasises naturalism, but incorporated within the Bottom Walk are formal features likely to date from the C20 that provide some diversity. Immediately adjacent to the house on the east side is a level area bordered to the south by a ha-ha. It contains a small classically detailed pavilion, probably Edwardian, and a below-ground pool. Heading north-east from the house there are some specimen trees, a stone terrace and steps, and a C21 cabin. noteable trees include two veteran holm oaks, a katsura, and a manna ash. The 1907 OS map shows this area formerly contained a pheasantry.
OTHER BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES Between the larger lower lake and the smaller and shallower upper lake is a step in the river. Concealing this feature is a three span hump-backed bridge in white ashlar limestone that has been built above it to the designs of John Carr. In common with the house, coach house, and lodges the bridge is classically detailed and proportioned. It is Grade II* listed (NHLE entry 1165038).
At the western end of the ha-ha that runs part of the way along the edge of the Top and Bottom Walks is a small single-storey C20 octagonal building called the 'Hermit's Hut'. It stands on a brick plinth and is clad and roofed in tarred wooden boards. It has glazed timber doors with windows on either side, and a brick chimney stack projects to the rear. It is positioned with views across the parkland to the west, near to a clump of Scots pines.
West of the hermit's hut is a lily pond with a pump. The latter comprises reused stonework, possibly from a church: a stone column stands on a carved plinth, with a C13 capital on top.
The dam at the eastern end of the lower lake incorporates sluice gates and spillways and there has been some C20 concrete repair.
Close to the spillway at the northern corner of the lower lake are the limestone footings of a former, possibly C18, boat house. Adjacent to it is a post-war concrete jetty.
THE PARK The park historically extended from a clearing at the north-westernmost corner of the Top Walk to the edge of Spital in the Street in the south west, and across at a north-east angle to the eastern end of the Halfmoon Plantation, and up past Fishpond Bottom to reach the north-eastern corner of the Bottom Walk. The upper and lower lakes divide the grazed lawns that characterise the land nearest the house from the ploughed fields on the south side. These ploughed areas have historically been indicated as part of the parkland on maps and retain their historic boundaries. Young's 1799 comments on the landscape at Norton indicate that the park may have an early history of being ploughed intermittently.
Between the small plantation on the south side of the lower lake near to the dam (called Basset's Wig on the 1st edition OS map) and the shelterbelt halfmoon plantation at the south east park boundary a new area of tree plantations has been introduced and gradually expanded over the course of the C20.
While the perimeter of the park is generally defined by plantations of mixed conifers and deciduous trees, the lawns also contain interspersed chestnuts, beeches, limes and oaks many of which are likely to date to the laying out of the park in around 1776. On the north side of the clearing in the north-western corner of the top walk is at least one example of an oak which may predate the park itself. The eastern boundary between Fishpond Bottom and Bottom walk once featured a hawthorn hedge that has now grown tall.
WALLED GARDEN Close to the western boundary of the park, south of the wooded area of the drive, is a large walled garden. The garden is trapezoidal in plan, catching a greater amount of direct sunlight. It is faced externally in coursed rubble limestone, and internally with red bricks laid in English Garden Wall bond. There are ruinous ancillary structures on the north and western boundaries externally, and the scars of some lost structures built against the north wall internally. A large gateway stands at the north-east corner, and there is a blocked original doorway beneath a brick arch on the south wall. C21 pheasantry huts stand within the garden. The south wall was originally heated, with stoves fuelled from the north side, and flues running horizontally through the thickness of the wall, releasing heat to the south side through bricks laid on their side. By this mechanism a slip garden was created against the south wall, projecting a single bay to the south with formal entrances at the east and west ends. Scars suggest there may have been a roof, possibly for a glass house or structural protection for trained plants, along part of this area.