Tornewton House

Tornewton House is a house, originally the mansion of the Peter family, dating back to at least the 14th century and occupied by them until the 17th century. The present house is largely of the early 19th century, with Victorian alterations, and likely incorporates some 16th-century fabric at the rear. Built of rendered stone with some brick, the roofs are slate-covered. The building is complex, comprising three main parts.

The main range was built onto an earlier structure and may incorporate a pre-19th century building. It has a symmetrical five-window front of three storeys. The central three windows of the second storey are grouped together. The centre doorway has a projecting rectangular stone porch, likely from the mid-19th century and now glazed, set on a plinth. Round-arched doorways and windows have moulded archivolts that continue as a string course. A deeply projecting cornice and blocking course sit above. Ground-floor French windows have glazing bars and barred sidelights with fringed blind cases featuring long scroll brackets. Second-storey windows also have blind cases, and bow-fronted guard-rails of trellised ironwork (except for the middle window). The windows are 19th-century four-panel timber sashes containing a high proportion of old glass. Pilasters are at either end of the front, with double incised decoration. A heavy wood cornice sits on large brackets, imitating an 18th-century eaves cornice. A later attic storey is set back slightly, with three two-light wooden casement windows and flanking pilasters. A right-hand gable is fenestrated with frames of various dates and patterns.

A rear wing runs off the main house at an angle, potentially remaining from an earlier house. It is two storeys high and two rooms deep, with the rear rooms being older. It has six-paned barred sash windows on each storey, and a round-headed window on either side of a ground-floor window. A rear wall features a round-arched doorway with granite voussoirs, now converted into a window. An exterior stone and timber staircase, probably from the 19th century, has a brick pillar with a moulded cap, supporting a timber canopy at the second-floor landing. It originally ended under a pent roof, now cemented in and serving a large addition at garret level.

Sir William Peter, Secretary of State to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, was born here. The house was the seat of the Wolston family in the 18th and 19th centuries; John Wolston Esquire occupied it in 1793. The interior has not been inspected.