It was built in 1848-1849 for William Repton, son of Humphry Repton, the landscape gardener, to a design by his brother, John Adey Repton. The builder was William Bartram, of Millgate, Aylsham. The house is noted as an important early example of developed Tudor Revival style.

The gardens complemented the house, as John Adey Repton was noted for garden design that was "increasingly formal, historicist and small scale" and included fruit trees, glasshouse, fountain, formal lawns (described as "pleasure ground."). The gardens are mentioned in the Norfolk Gardens Trust survey carried out in die late I990's. Over the years, the house was used as a private dwelling and then converted into flats. It was then empty for a number of years, being slowly vandalised and left to disintegrate. In June 2001 it was gutted by fire and the obvious water damage took its toll on the property.

Work then began on refurbishment of the building to bring it back to its former glory, with sympathetic conversion of the original building into 8 flats, and complementary newbuild in the grounds to provide a further 8 flats. This was a partnership between Broadland District Council (as the statutory housing authority) and Broadland Housing Association, with occupancy aimed at the over 55's.

Since completion at the end of 2003, the development has won several local and regional architecture and town planning awards.