Lawton House

Lawton House

Lawton House is a mid 18th-century Classical house of 2 storeys with a full basement, built in a symmetrical 3-bay arrangement with single-bay recessed flanking wings. The principal front elevation is constructed of red sandstone ashlar with raised margins to the ashlar quoins, while the rear and side elevations are predominantly stugged and squared red sandstone rubble, with harling applied to the rear of the north wing.

The front elevation features regular fenestration with lugged architraves and consoled cills to the main block windows, and corniced architraves with keystones to the ground floor. The basement windows display lintel bands. The principal west elevation includes lintel bands to both basement and ground floor, surmounted by an eaves band, cornice, and blocking course. The centrepiece is a timber-panelled door with a sunburst glazed rectangular fanlight set within a Roman Doric doorpiece with attached column shafts, approached by splayed stairs with cast iron railings that overhang the basement. The single-storey flanking wings feature windows recessed in segmental overarches, with coped screen walls above concealing the roofs.

The rear east elevation is articulated as a 3-bay composition with advanced single-storey flanking wings. The centre features a projecting piend-roofed stair bay with a tall segmentally headed window. To the right, a projecting bay is flanked by small lean-to roofed additions, 2-storey to the left and single storey to the right. The single-storey wings have a blank elevation to the left and a door to the centre with flanking windows to the right. The south side elevation of the main block has a small window to the centre of the gable-end, while the single-storey wing features windows to the left and centre, and a door to the right with altered openings.

Windows throughout are predominantly fitted with 12-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows, with thicker 18th-century glazing bars to the basement windows. The roof is of graded slate with stone skews and skewputts; the rear skewputts are decoratively carved with gargoyle heads. Gable-head stacks with octangular cans rise from the main block, while the wings incorporate stacks into their outer corner screen walls. Rainwater goods are predominantly cast iron.

The interior contains several early 19th-century chimneypieces on the ground and first floors, and the first-floor rooms feature coved ceilings.

The Hencote (henhouse) is a 17th-century structure of square plan built in red sandstone rubble with dressed quoins featuring finely droved margins and widely droved tails. A doorway is positioned to the centre of the south elevation, with a small window opening to its left that has been subsequently blocked with rubble. The structure is currently unroofed as of 2004, though slates from the original pyramidal roof are stored on site. Two large structural cracks extend from ground level to the wallhead on the west and east elevations. The interior retains 2 tiers of stone nesting boxes along the walls and remnants of limewash finish.

The Steading is a mid to late 18th-century structure arranged in a U-plan around a central courtyard, constructed predominantly of red sandstone tooled random rubble with some quoins displaying finely droved margins and widely droved tails. The east range is single storey with a lean-to car port attached to its east elevation, a timber-boarded stable door to the north elevation, and a large door opening to the south elevation. A door opening to the centre of the west elevation is also present, while other openings have been blocked. Remnants of a timber lean-to roof remain on the west elevation. The west range is 2-storey, with large door openings to the ground floor of the north elevation and an opening to the first floor above. The west elevation features ground-floor openings including a door to the left and two windows to the centre, with a blocked altered opening to the right and two first-floor openings. The south elevation has two ground-floor windows and a first-floor opening. The east elevation incorporates a single-storey open-sided lean-to structure with stone end walls. A blind former gable-end wall connects the east and west ranges at the north end, with a half-pitch gable end and timber-boarded door adjacent. Internally, the ground floor is predominantly fitted with timber-boarded sliding doors of varying sizes, while the first floor features timber-boarded doors. Inside the courtyard, two rubble walls with saddleback coping are terminated by piers with pyramidal caps. The roofs are non-original corrugated iron with a piended end to the north end of the east range. Stone skews and skewputts, moulded to the west range, are present throughout. Rainwater goods are predominantly cast iron.