Norton Bavant House, With Attached Garden Walls To West

Norton Bavant House is a country house located in Norton Bavant village, dating to the late 17th century, with alterations made in the late 18th and 20th centuries. The house is constructed of rendered brick with a fishscale tiled hipped roof and brick stacks arranged in groups of four. It is two storeys and has an attic, with a seven-window front. The main entrance features a central door with six fielded panels and decorative glazing, set within a moulded stone architrave topped with a shell hood supported by console brackets. Flanking the entrance are three hollow-chamfered cross windows. A moulded string course runs at lintel level. The first floor also has seven hollow-chamfered cross windows. The house has a moulded and coved eaves cornice and a steeply pitched hipped roof with four flat-headed dormers containing two-light casements.

The right return features a central glazed double door in a moulded eared stone architrave with a flat wooden hood on brackets. To the right are two plate glass sashes in former cross window openings, while to the left are two cross windows; one retains leading. A string course is present, and the first floor has five cross windows. The rear of the house incorporates three cross windows, a chamfered doorcase with a glazed door to the right of centre, and an early 20th-century porch to the left. A string course runs along the rear, and there are six cross windows on the first floor. A cornice sits above, and two flat-headed dormers are set into the hipped gables. The central two bays at the rear represent an 18th-century insertion, with a flat lead roof filling in what was formerly a narrow rear courtyard between the flanking wings. The left return has three cross windows on the ground floor and two on the first floor. A 1920s two-storey extension with cross windows and a fishscale tiled roof is attached.

The interior contains alterations from the 1960s, including the relocation of an early 18th-century staircase from the west entrance hall to the centre of the house. The original staircase was retained and features two turned balusters per open string tread, a wide moulded and ramped handrail, and a glazed inner door in an elliptical-arched opening (added in the late 20th century). Good original fittings remain throughout the house, particularly in the panelling of most rooms. The rear drawing room showcases bolection-moulded fielded panelling, a dentilled ceiling cornice, bolection-moulded doorcases, and doors with six fielded panels, as well as an eared fireplace surround. The first-floor billiard room is particularly notable, with bolection-moulded and raised panelling, a wooden ceiling cornice, matching doors incorporating ‘H’ hinges, and original timber floorboards. The attic stairs have splat balusters to a closed string, square chamfered newels with bar stops and bulgy finials, wide moulded handrails, planked doors with strap hinges in chamfered cases with bar stops, one Tudor-arched doorway with a ribbed door, and some studded timber partitioning. The roof structure consists of through purlins.

The house was likely built by the Benet family and remained in their possession until the early 20th century; the Benet chapel in the Church of All Saints is also associated with the family. Attached to the west are garden walls constructed of English garden bond brick with stone coping and round and segmental-arched openings.