Nortonbury House And Nortonbury Cottage

Nortonbury House and Nortonbury Cottage

This is a 16th-century timber-framed house in row, located on the west side of High Street in Tewkesbury. The building features braced timber-framing with plaster panels, some brick nogging, a tile roof, and brick stacks.

The main house has a side-entry parallel plan with a rear wing creating an L-shaped layout. The 3-storey street front is twice jettied with the roof parallel to the street. To the right is a throughway leading to a long 3-storey wing in square panel framing, which includes the separate Nortonbury Cottage.

The front block is 3 storeys high with 2 windows across its width. The second floor contains 2 wide-spaced 4-pane sashes in replica framing, with small single lights in the returns where the jettying projects beyond adjacent buildings. The first floor has two 12-pane sashes, offset to the left within plastered walling, with no window above the throughway. The ground floor displays a late 19th-century shop front with a deep recessed glazed door to a plain transom-light and slender mullions. The fascia features a dentil cornice spanning the full width, including the throughway, which is accessed by a 9-panel framed door. The upper jetty reveals exposed joist ends and is supported on 2 decorative consoles. The roof is very steep with a brick stack at the ridge to the right.

The throughway is crossed by 2 heavy square beams, with a large jowelled post just inside the doorway. Approximately 3 metres back from the door stands a broad low arch, beyond which a panelled door provides entry to the ground floor of the front block. The back wall shows some timber-framing.

Nortonbury Cottage has plastered panels and a tile roof with a large ridge stack. It rises 3 storeys and features various windows including some 12-pane sashes and a part-glazed 19th-century door beneath a heavy moulded early 18th-century pediment on consoles.

The interior of the ground floor rear room contains an 18th-century fire surround with an eared moulded architrave. The wing displays a series of heavy transverse beams on posts at regular intervals. To the north is a good 12-pane sash and to the south a 16-pane sash. The mid stair is a tight early 18th-century open well with square newels and drops, turned balusters, and a solid moulded string with a laylight above; the bottom flight has been replaced in a manner inconsistent with the original work. The principal corner posts are very large with jowelled heads. Various 18th-century two- and three-panel fielded doors are present throughout, and much heavy braced framing is exposed. On the top level at the south party wall, a major brace has been cut through to insert a small lateral light. The second floor was originally open to the roof (not currently accessible).

Nortonbury Cottage, judging from the quality of its structural members, appears to have been a service or storage wing to Nortonbury House, though it now functions as a separate dwelling. The ground floor features a large bressumer fire serving an 18th-century brick stack. At first floor level, lateral beams rest on haunched posts, and the early joists are roughly finished. Wind-braces appear in each slope of one bay of the roof, which has a clasped purlin.

The building takes its name from "Nortonbury," the name used by Mrs Craik for Tewkesbury in her novel "John Halifax, Gentleman" (1857).