Blankney House Front Railings And Steps

Blankney House, located on Low Street in Winterton, is a late 18th-century house that includes front railings and steps, with some 19th-century internal alterations to the rear. The building is constructed of squared limestone rubble, featuring brick stacks and a pantile roof. The front is adorned with cast-iron railings set on an ashlar dwarf wall.

The house has a central entrance hall plan and is two storeys high with three symmetrical bays. The central bay, which is pedimented, projects forward. There are two flights of four stone steps leading to the entrance, which is flanked by railings and has an ornamental iron grille over the cellar window below. The entrance features a Doric doorcase with pilasters that support a fluted entablature and a dentilled open pediment. The door is a six-panelled design with a radial fanlight set in an arched beaded-panel reveal. The windows are 12-pane sashes with keyed stucco flat arches and cills, and there is a stucco band at the first floor. The first-floor windows are similar to those on the ground floor but have plain stucco flat arches. The roof is hipped with twin axial stacks.

On the right return, facing Market Street, there are two windows on each floor that match those at the front. The railings extend approximately one metre from the front, with a pair of gates flanking the steps to the entrance. The gates feature a chamfered ashlar plinth, fluted column posts with pineapple finials, and vertical bars with fleur-de-lys finials, all linked by mid- and top-rails.

Inside, original details include an open-well staircase with a ramped and wreathed handrail, column-on-vase balusters with square knops, and a moulded ceiling in the stair hall with a cornice and central fan design. The main rooms on the ground and first floors feature moulded ceiling cornices, composition chimneypieces, and beaded-panel doors and window shutters in architraves. Blankney House is a fine and largely intact example of a modest late Georgian townhouse, likely built for William Marris using his £10,000 lottery winnings, as noted by W. Andrews in "The History of Winterton" from 1836.