Newton House

Newton House

This is a late 17th-century house of three storeys with an attic, arranged on a rectangular plan across seven bays. It is built of pink sandstone with rubble infill, ashlar margins, sills and entrance steps, and is surrounded by iron railings.

The house was substantially altered around 1820 when it was re-orientated, and a rear wing was added in 1835. The southeast elevation, which was originally the rear of the house, is now the principal front. It features three large windows to the ground floor on each side of a central entrance. Ten ashlar steps with an iron handrail lead up to the first floor entrance, which is marked by a pilastered and corniced doorpiece with a panelled timber door. Three symmetrical bays flank the entrance, with seven more bays symmetrically placed above on the second floor. The attic storey contains a triple Carron light aligned with the second bay and a single Carron light above the entrance bay. The roof terminates in deep wallhead skew gables.

The southwest elevation displays the main house gable on the right with a single bay to each storey on the left. A harled gablehead stack with a thick sloped base, projecting neck copes and three later terracotta cans occupies this side. The 1835 addition adjoins the rear of the main house to the left and is partially harled. It rises three storeys across two bays, with tripartite windows to the left and single windows to the right. A projecting stone date plaque with an architraved surround, family initials, a family motto and a wheat-sheaf crest sits between the bays at the top storey. The addition has a window to the top storey on the left return and is topped by a skew gable with a harled gablehead stack, thick sloped base, projecting neck copes and three later terracotta cans. A single bay extends to the left of the addition at each floor level to the rear.

The northwest elevation, which was originally the principal front, shows four bays with projecting single-bay wings to the flanks. A projecting lean-to on metal piers covers the central bays with stone infill to the left. Windows are irregularly placed on the second and fourth bays, while the first and third bays are blind at each floor. The left wing projects a single bay at each storey. The northeast elevation of the right wing, in the re-entrant angle, has a door to the ground floor left and a single window to the right of each floor, with an additional window to the second floor left. This adjoins the rear of the southwest wing.

The northeast elevation includes a projecting ground floor store to the left, a small window on the main body of the house, and a single-storey three-bay lean-to to the right with an entrance to the right return. The upper floors of the main house present a blind gable end with a window in the left of the attic storey. A harled gablehead chimney with a thick sloped base, projecting neck copes and three later terracotta cans stands here.

The windows to the front elevation are 12-pane timber sash and case; those to the southwest elevation are 8-pane; and those to the rear are 12-pane timber sash and case with some replacement fixed pane glazing. The roof is slate with cast-iron Carron lights to the front and rear attic floors. The guttering and rainwater goods have been replaced in PVCU.

The interior was remodelled in 1820 at the time of the house's re-orientation. It includes panelled doors opening from the hallway, a stone vaulted cellar room, and the first flight of the original staircase; the remainder remains unseen.

The walled garden dates mainly to before 1750 and forms a large rectangular enclosure of high coursed rubble and ashlar sandstone walls with shaped copes. It surrounds Newton House and its grounds and incorporates dividing walls, with partially surviving ancillary structures along the interior west and south walls. An entrance with gatepiers opens to the northeast elevation. The longest dividing wall, aligned northwest-southeast, is brick-lined to its west elevation.

The gatepiers to the northeast elevation consist of a pair of single squared pink sandstone piers with ashlar pyramided cushion caps and a heavy ashlar lintel forming a former pedestrian entrance to the left, now infilled. A pair of later open iron gates with pointed bars stands nearby. A square pink sandstone gate pier adjoins the garden wall to the right. The piers are mostly ivy clad.