Lock House on the Grantham Canal, Stenwith

The Lock House at Stenwith is associated with the Grantham Canal and was likely built in the late 18th or early 19th century for the canal lock keeper. The canal, engineered by William Jessop, opened in 1797. The house is constructed of red brick with gable chimneys and a red clay pantile roof. A light external render, or wash coating, once covered the brickwork but has largely decayed.

The building is aligned roughly north-west to south-east, with a linear form and a single room depth. It features an off-centre doorway, facing away from the canal, enclosed within a single-storey gabled porch. The original design included three bays, and a single-storey lean-to addition has been added to the left-hand gable. The central porch is flanked by stacked window openings containing two-over-two pane sash frames. The ground-floor windows have shallow arched heads, while the upper-floor windows have heads level with the eaves. A small sash window is located in the gable apex to the right of the porch. The lean-to has a separate entrance below a shallow canopy and a small square chimney to the rear outer corner. The rear elevation includes a small, canted bay window to the ground-floor room at the north-west end, allowing observation of canal traffic approaching the lock from both directions.

The interior layout appears original and largely unaltered. The entrance porch leads to a narrow central hall passage, with a dog-leg stair and a small basement positioned below. Ground-floor rooms lie on either side of the hall passage, each featuring longitudinal beams supporting exposed joists and a hearth in the end wall. A lean-to and a north-west ground-floor room both retain cast-iron ranges. The central winder stair has a small semi-basement and provides access to three upper-floor rooms, one at the rear of the building, and two at either end of the upper floor accessed from a short landing passage above the hall passage. The small central sash window illuminates the landing passage.

Original joinery remains, including four-panel doors, moulded architraves, and hearthside cupboards with raised and fielded door panels. The winder stair features stick balusters, a simply moulded handrail and a plain plank door at its base. The south-east ground and first-floor rooms have domestic-scale hearths, with substantial contemporary surrounds, the ground-floor example featuring a later hearth insert.