Norton House

Norton House is an early 19th-century house located in Higher Brixham on Milton Street. It features solid rendered walls and a hipped slated roof, standing at right angles to the street. The house is designed in a picturesque Gothic style and has two storeys with a symmetrical three-window front.

On the ground floor, there are three ogee-headed French windows set in shallow recesses. The central window has a straight-sided pointed arch, while the outer windows have round arches. The upper-storey windows also feature ogee arches, with two-light wood casements. All windows in both storeys have small-paned glazing with margin panes, consisting of three panes on the ground floor and two on the upper floor. The window heads have intersecting Gothic glazing bars. Each end of the front elevation is adorned with a rusticated pilaster strip, and there is a deep flat eaves cornice with paired brackets.

The left side wall facing the street has a flat-headed blind window in a round-headed recess on the ground floor, and a smaller flat-headed blind window on the upper storey. This side also features rusticated pilaster strips and an eaves cornice matching the front elevation.

The interior has not been inspected, but a description from 1975 indicates that it retains delicate mouldings and fittings. The central hall leads to a staircase with a Greek key moulding on the soffit, a swept mahogany handrail, and plain slender banisters. There is a half-landing with a concave door that follows the curve of the wall into the service wing, which is No. 18. The doors on the first-floor landing are similarly concave. All doorcases have fluted architraves with leaf mould corner blocks. The living room features an anthemion pattern frame on the ceiling and an egg-and-dart string, along with a panelled dado rail. The dining room has curved corners and a shallow cove on the ceiling, similar to the centre first-floor room. Internally, the windows have deep panelled shutters and soffits to the ogee arches, and there is a plain marble chimneypiece.

Norton House is part of a group of villas in Brixham associated with the Gillard family, which includes Aylmer.