Norton House Hotel

Norton House Hotel is a Georgian villa dating from the 18th century. The symmetrical main block is two storeys high and comprises three bays. The exterior walls are stuccoed, with faint traces of original scoring, and are topped by a hipped slate roof from which the chimneys have been removed. A central portico features Greek Doric columns in antis, a simple entablature with a wreath frieze, and a doorway with a moulded architrave, a plain semi-circular overlight, and a replaced door. The windows are 12-pane hornless sashes. The lower-storey windows in the outer bays are set within shallow rusticated aedicules, with the projection extended upwards to frame the upper-storey windows on either side. The upper-storey windows have thin moulded architraves.

To the left side of the building are two full-height canted bays and a moulded sill band to the upper storey. The upper storey has three hornless sashes in architraves, while the lower storey features French doors in the canted bays, with steps leading to a basement door. A full-width verandah, with shallow projections mirroring the canted bays, has polygonal wooden posts, an open meander and palmette frieze, and a swept roof covered in fishscale slates. The rear wall, composed of three bays, is cement-rendered and contains French doors in architraves to the lower storey. The upper storey has 12-pane hornless sashes in the outer bays with architraves and a sill band; the central window has been cut down to create an escape stair.

On the right (West) side of the front is a lower, L-shaped two-storey service range. The oldest part of this range is attached to the main house, has a hipped slate roof and two hornless sashes in the upper storey, with a later lean-to addition below.

The interior features an entrance vestibule with a plaster vault, leading to a stair hall. The geometrical staircase has a wreathed handrail, scrolled iron balusters, and a moulded string. A gallery is positioned at the top of the stairs, also with a plaster vault. Round-headed alcoves are found within the stair hall. The principal room, now a restaurant, to the left has two arched, moulded recesses and an acanthus leaf cornice. Other rooms have classicising plaster cornices.