Newhouse

Newhouse is a country house dating to circa 1619, originally designed by William Stockman and later extended in the 18th century for the Eyres family. The house is constructed of English bond brick with limestone dressings, topped with a tiled roof and featuring brick stacks. It comprises a central hexagonal block with three projecting wings.

The front of the house has three storeys and eight windows. The central range features a 20th-century door within a moulded architrave, accessed by stone steps. It is flanked by three mullioned and transomed windows on each side. The first floor has three mullioned and transomed windows to the wings, and two to the centre. The second floor of the central section contains three windows. The roof has saddleback coping to the gabled eaves. Groups of diagonally-set stacks are prominent on the central range. The wings were lengthened in 1742 (west) and 1764 (south), evidenced by dated lead rainwater heads, coved eaves, and battlemented parapets. The windows visible today all date from 1911. A wall rebuilt in the 1970s replaces a late 19th-century wing on the left return, while the right return features a 1907 canted bay extension to the ballroom. The south-east facade displays two large 12-pane sashes and French windows to the ballroom in the 1764 wing. The first floor has three blocked windows, all within moulded cases with hoodmoulds. Rainwater heads dated 1907 are present to the right, and the original 1619 build retains one mullioned and transomed window per floor on each face, with a gabled roof. The rear, north side, has a 20th-century door in a moulded architrave to the centre, a tall casement with hoodmoulds to the right, and mullioned and transomed windows above the door. The left wing has blocked windows. Rainwater heads dated 1750 mark the central block.

Inside, the entrance hall contains an early 18th-century staircase with barleysugar balusters, an open string, carved spandrels, and a ramped handrail. The parlour in the south wing has a reset 18th-century fireplace with stone jambs, a segmental head with a keystone, and panelling. The kitchen remains in its original location in the west wing. The library in the east range has a Tudor-arched stone fireplace with a herringbone fireback. The dining room in the 1742 wing is notable for its early 20th-century rococo-style plaster ceiling, reset 17th-century panelling, and Ionic oak columns to the fireplace mantel, which itself is a Tudor-arched stone fireplace. The 1764 wing was refitted as a ballroom in an 18th-century style by Maples in 1907. The first floor contains eared marble fireplaces, reset 17th-century joinery, and original 17th-century stairs with squat barleysugar balusters and a closed string. The roof retains chamfered timbers and scissor-bracing over the wings, restored in 1911.

Historically, the house was sold as a 'mansion house' by William Stockman to Sir Edward Gorges, son of Thomas Gorges, who built Longford Castle; the unusual plan may have influenced Newhouse in Herefordshire, built in 1636. It was acquired by Giles Eyre of Brickworth House in 1633 and remained in his family's possession until January 1985.