Norwood House

Norwood House, built circa 1765-70, was likely constructed for Jonathan Midgley, twice Mayor of Beverley. It is a red brick building with painted stone dressings, comprising a central block with a wide pediment and two low, angle wings forming a forecourt with small square pavilions. The three-storey central block has five windows wide. The ground floor is faced in rusticated stone, and the central doorway features vermiculated rustication to the architrave, consoles, a pulvinate frieze, three key blocks, a cornice broken over the consoles, an eight-panel door, and a fanlight. Original wrought iron lamp brackets flank the entrance. A moulded stone cill string with balusters runs under the first-floor windows. The central window has a stone architrave resting on stone plinths to form a feature with the doorway; it is topped with a pulvinate frieze and cornice. Other first-floor windows are set within gauged brick arches surmounted by light stone cornices. Second-floor windows have stone cills and gauged arches. The building is topped with a bracketed cornice and a full-width triangular pediment containing a cartouche framing a bull’s eye, with trailing husks. Three plinths supported urns, which are now missing. One side wing has been rebuilt, while the other, one story high, has two windows facing south and east, set in arched recesses. It has a stone string and moulded coping to the parapet with inset balusters. The terminal pavilion features a two-story Venetian window facing east into the forecourt and a plain window facing south. The roof is slated and was raised three feet. The garden front is simpler than the south front, with a wood cornice, a fine stone doorcase, and an elaborate glazed door. A library block, added around 1825 for W Beverley, is in a Grecian style.

Inside, the house features a fine staircase with carved tread ends, notable stucco work, and fireplaces. The Drawing Room contains a Rococo ceiling inspired by Colen Campbell's design for Compton Place in Eastbourne, as well as a Palladian overdoor and a marble mantel with a stucco overmantel depicting cherubs' heads, executed in the style of Joseph Page of Hull. The doorcases are derived from a plate in Kent’s 'Designs of Inigo Jones'.

Norwood House is a remarkable house of modest scale.