Norton Court

Norton Court

This house presents a late 17th or early 18th-century front elevation, though with significant earlier elements within. The main range is two storeys high, built of roughly-coursed red sandstone rubble with quoins, and roofed in blue and purple slates with lead flashings to ridges and valleys. The composition features a recessed centre between slightly-projecting wings under hipped roofs, with a first-floor band, plastered cornice, and nearly symmetrical fenestration. Ground-floor windows have keystones.

The plan is rectangular on a north-west to south-east axis, facing south-west. At the north-west end, a set-back L-plan service wing projects at right angles; the linking portion is now partly obscured by a recent forward extension. The recessed centre contains a doorway to the right with a 19th-century panelled and glazed door under a pitched wood and slate canopy. To the left are two vertical-rectangular windows with keyed flat-arched heads and cross-window joinery with casement openings; two first-floor windows above are similarly detailed. The left wing has one window per floor matching the centre. The broader right-hand wing has one window per floor, set off-centre left, with the ground-floor opening being square with two mullions rather than one; its roof sweeps over the eaves.

A small brick chimney stands near the left end of the main roof ridge. A massive stone side-wall chimney projects from the middle of the south-east return. This wall has a small single-light window at ground floor near the front corner, and a blocked window on each floor near the rear corner.

The rear wall, built of smaller and less regular rubble, is sparsely fenestrated. Near its centre at ground floor is a two-light stone mullioned window with chamfered mullion and reveal. Towards the south-east end, a modern glazed door sits within the top half of a former similar window frame, now enclosed by a large modern polygonal conservatory; a small single-light window stands to its left, with a casement window to the right. Near the opposite end are another modern glazed door and another casement above. Two blocked windows with wooden lintels are vertically aligned to the left of these, the lower positioned somewhat above ground-floor level.

The projecting service wing at the north-west end has small-paned top-hung casement windows: one at ground floor and two at first floor on the side wall, and one per floor on the south-west gable. Its rear wall contains four small windows at ground floor (three segmental-headed), a single casement at first floor, and a short tapered brick chimney on the gable.

The most significant interior feature is the south-east wing, probably added during a rebuilding around 1600. It contains a large parlour at ground floor and an equivalent chamber above, both separated from the rest of the house by timber-framed partitioning on both levels. The parlour has a pair of axial ceiling beams with deep chamfer and plain joists (recently exposed). At its south-east end stands a very wide stone fireplace with an enormous stone lintel, the opening approximately 1.5 metres wide and 1 metre high, with a moulded surround. To the left is a square-headed staircase doorway with chamfered surround; this was recently revealed when a straight 19th-century staircase on the rear wall was removed, exposing and allowing restoration of the spiral staircase within. To the right of the chimney breast, set back, is a splayed window. The chamber above contains a pair of axial beams with small chamfer (joists under-drawn), a close-studded partition wall with mid-rail, and a recently-exposed rectangular fireplace with moulded surround and very deep stone lintel in the rear wall. At the spiral staircase head is a garderobe, its shaft descending through the south-east corner of the building. The chamber in the centre of the house is similarly partitioned from the north-west wing by timber-framing.

The roof displays much evidence of alteration across different periods and incorporates re-used timbers, some bearing smoke-blackening.