Sundial, Colton House

Colton House is a two-storey house with attic and basement built in 1885. The walls are constructed of stugged, snecked sandstone with moulded eaves, string and base courses, and skewputts.

The west elevation is asymmetrical. An advanced porch projects to the left, supported by a pair of Tuscan columns beneath a corniced canopy. A window with a relieving arch sits to the left of the porch, with a bipartite first-floor window above it. Above the porch door rises a corbelled turret with two first-floor windows and two attic windows, topped with a pepper-pot roof and weather vane. The eaves are higher on the right than on the far left section. A central tripartite ground-floor window is flanked by two single windows on the first floor above. The far right bay features a canted bow window with a crenellated cornice; a bipartite first-floor window sits centred above it, and the eaves course forms an arch above the window. A single attic window in a dormer gable surmounts the bay with a finial.

The south elevation has a doubled gabled design with a gabled section to the far left. A blank plaque with bracketed and moulded surround interrupts the string course, surmounted by floral decoration and the inscription 'DEO GRATIAS AD 1885'. An oval first-floor window sits to the right, with a blind attic window with moulded pediment in the apex. Decorative cast-iron railings and a gate cordon off steps to the basement, which has a door flanked by two windows. Ground-floor and first-floor windows occupy the right section. An advanced gabled bay to the right has rounded quoins. A central corniced, canted bow window sits below a tripartite window above with a relieving arch. An attic window in the apex is surmounted by a ball finial. The first floor is corbelled out at the quoins with square-plan turret decoration featuring a floral base, a cornice with plain pinnacle, and a surmounting finial.

The east elevation is mostly obscured by a modern flat-roofed extension. Four ground-floor and three first-floor windows are visible. A glazed door and first-floor window occupy the left return. A first-floor pedimented dormer window sits at the house centre with a circular blank plaque in the apex. Two catslide dormer attic windows sit wholly within the roof to the left. A gabled section to the right contains an attic window to the left.

The north elevation has a flat-roofed extension to the far left with a shuttered opening and a door, with a first-floor window above. A bipartite window with a relieving arch sits to the left of the main house, with a bipartite first-floor window centred above. A mid-level window at the centre has a continuous string course forming a hoodmould, with an attic window above featuring a pediment and blank plaque in the apex. A bipartite window and a single window sit to the right, with a first-floor window above and an attic window to the far right beneath an asymmetrical pediment with finial.

The windows are predominantly four-pane timber sash and case with chamfered stone mullions to the bipartite and tripartite windows. The roofing is predominantly gabled slate. A shouldered and corniced ridge stack sits on the west elevation ridge. The south elevation has a corniced gable-end stack to the left gable with a finial to the rear, and a shouldered and corniced ridge stack to the south elevation ridge. The east elevation has a gable-end stack to the right with cornicing and shouldering to the right only, featuring an asymmetrical gradient and curved stops to the wallhead cornice with circular cans.

The interior was not seen during recording in 2000.

A sundial dating from the early 18th century is positioned in front of the south elevation. It stands on a Frosterly marble plinth decorated with foliage including thistles and roses carved into the stone pedestal, with a carved head to each abacus face. The dial has a broken white marble base with a replacement lead dial and gnomon.

A pair of gatepiers sits close to Colton House to the northwest, constructed of sandstone blocks with conical coping stones. A second pair of entrance gatepiers to the drive features rock-faced rustication and chamfered coping stones with a quadrant wall.