Norris House

Norris House is a late 18th and early 19th century house and office situated in a row on St James's Street, South Petherton. It is constructed of Ham stone ashlar with a plain clay tiled roof, featuring stepped coped gables and brick end chimney stacks. The house is two stories high with an attic, and has three bays. It includes a plinth and 12-pane sash windows in plain openings. The windows in bays 1 and 2 have timber lintels. Bay 3 has a two-story angled bay window with 4+12+4 pane sashes and a Regency-style cornice under a flat roof. A window in the lower bay 1 appears to be in the location of an old doorway. To the left of this bay is a six-fielded-panel door recessed within panelling, approached by a single step and surrounded by stone with Tuscan pilasters, a plain entablature, and a simple pediment. Between bays 2 and 3 is a Regency-style patterned six-panel door with the upper three panels glazed, recessed and approached by five steps, with a stone surround featuring attached Tuscan columns on plinths, a plain entablature, and pediments. A tall, lean-to building adjoins the south gable, with end wall in Flemish bond red brickwork and a clay pantiled roof. It incorporates a garage opening below and a doorway in a raked gable above. In the main gable is a two-light hollow-chamfered mullioned window with a label and partly rectangular-leaded, iron-framed opening lights. Above this window is a square plaque in the gable crown, although the date is not discernible. The interior has not been inspected. In the 18th century, the house was the residence and practice of Hugh Norris, the town’s doctor and historian.