Langton House

Langton House

Large house of early 19th-century date, built in more than one phase and almost certainly incorporating earlier origins. The main block is constructed of painted brick with a weatherboarded timber-framed section at first floor level on the garden front. Painted brick chimney stacks and shafts feature dentil cornices. The roof is slate.

The house has an irregular double-depth plan facing The Green to the east-southeast. The entrance front faces south and the garden front faces west. The main block is two storeys with attics in the front section. A service wing extends two storeys from the rear of the left side, with a single-storey billiard room extension projecting from the right side at the front. The plan is two rooms wide, with front rooms heated by projecting end stacks. The main doorway is positioned at the left end, leading to a large entrance hall with the staircase set between the rear rooms. The layout suggests an original central front doorway.

The symmetrical front elevation facing The Green contains three windows. At ground floor level, a central 12-pane sash window, probably blocking an earlier doorway, has a moulded stucco architrave and a floating cornice on acanthus consoles. Flanking canted bays contain replacement horned sashes without glazing bars, though some side lights retain original 8-pane sashes. Windows have moulded stucco architraves and parapets with balustrade sections, divided by a flat band at first floor level. The first floor contains a central round-headed sash with radial glazing bars and moulded stucco architrave, flanked by tripartite sashes with central 12-pane sashes. A moulded band runs above with deep eaves on pairs of shaped brackets. The roof is hipped at both ends and contains three flat-roofed dormers with horned 4-pane sashes. A weatherboarded clock tower rises from the centre of the ridge, with a fielded panel surround to the clock face and a pyramid roof surmounted by a weathervane.

The entrance front to the south has a less regular two-window front, mostly 16-pane sashes beneath low segmental brick arches, the upper ones fitted with shutters. The doorway to the rear of the front stack features a glazed door with glazing bars, side lights and overlight. An unusual flat-roofed porch with a moulded entablature on pairs of diagonally set posts and a segmental outer arch scrolling down at its apex fronts this elevation.

The north side presents an irregular five-window front. Most windows are 12-pane sashes, though only those towards the front have moulded stucco architraves. The western garden front is the most distinctive, the weatherboarding giving it a colonial appearance. It has a three-bay front with outer bays containing ground floor canted bay windows supporting jettied first floor bays, each containing two 12-pane sashes. The sills of the bay windows are curious, diminishing to pendants. A central doorway beneath a broad segmental arch contains a glazed door with side lights and overlight similar to the main entrance. The centre bay is recessed at first floor level to create a balcony fenced with an ornate cast iron balustrade, accessed via a French window. Deep eaves on pairs of shaped brackets crown the flanking bays, which are gabled with plain bargeboards featuring apex pendants. A tented verandah spans this front in the same style as the main porch. A bellcote sits on the ridge of the roof. The service block contains late 19th-century windows, mostly horned 2- and 4-pane sashes.

The interior contains a great deal of 19th-century joinery and other detailing, including a geometric stick baluster staircase.

Langton House is the largest building within a good group of varied listed structures fronting The Green.