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Summary

Description

Late 17th century, 3-storey with attic, 7-bay rectangular-plan plain classical house. Re-orientated circa 1820, rear wing added in 1835. Pink sandstone and rubble, ashlar margins, sills and entrance steps. Iron railings.

SOUTHEAST ELEVATION (originally rear elevation): 3 large windows to ground floor left, 3 windows to ground floor right; 10 ashlar steps with iron handrail leading to 1st floor entrance; step leading to pilastered and corniced doorpiece and panelled timber door, 3 symmetrical bays flanking; 7 symmetrically placed bays to 2nd floor; triple Carron light aligned with 2nd bay and single Carron light above entrance bay in attic; deep wallhead to skew gables.

SOUTHWEST ELEVATION (1835 addition): harled main house gable to right with single bay to each storey to left, harled gablehead stack with thick sloped base and projecting neck copes, 3 later terracotta cans; partially harled 1835 addition to left adjoining rear of main house: 3-storey, 2-bay (tripartite windows to left, single windows to right); projecting stone date plaque with architraved surround, initials, family motto and wheat-sheaf crest between bays to top storey; window to top storey right on left return; skew gabled with harled gablehead stack, thick sloped base, projecting neck copes and 3 later terracotta cans to each gable; single bay to left to each floor to rear of addition.

NORTHWEST (REAR) ELEVATION (originally Principal elevation of 4-bays with projecting single bay wings to flanks): projecting lean-to on metal piers to central bays with stone in-fill to left; irregularly placed windows to 2nd and 4th bays, blind to 1st and 3rd bay of each floor; single bay to each floor on projecting left wing; Northeast elevation of right wing in re-entrant angle: door to ground floor left, single window to right of each floor, window to 2nd floor to left, adjoins rear of SW wing.

NORTHEAST ELEVATION: projecting store to ground floor left, small window on main body of house, single storey 3-bay lean-to to right, entrance to right return; blind gable end to upper floors of main house with window in left of attic storey; harled gablehead chimney with thick sloped base and projecting neck copes, 3 later terracotta cans.

12-pane timber sash and case windows to front elevation; 8-pane to SW elevation; 12-pane timber sash and case with some replacement fixed pane glazing to rear. Slate roof with cast-iron Carron lights to front and rear of attic floor. Replacement PVCU guttering and rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: remodelled in 1820 when house was re-orientated: includes panelled doors leading from hallway, stone vaulted cellar room, first flight of original staircase, remainder unseen, 2000.

WALLED GARDEN: Mainly pre-1750s, large, rectangular-plan walled garden of high coursed rubble and ashlar sandstone walls with shaped copes, enclosing Newton House and its garden grounds and incorporating dividing walls, partially surviving ancillary structures to the interior west and south walls and an entrance with gatepiers to the northeast elevation. The longest dividing wall (aligned northwest-southeast) is brick-lined to its west elevation.

GATEPIERS (NORTHEAST ELEVATION): Pair of single squared pink sandstone piers, ashlar pyramided cushion caps, with heavy ashlar lintel forming former pedestrian entrance to left, now in-filled; pair of later open iron gates with pointed bars; square pink sandstone gate pier to right adjoining garden wall; mostly ivy clad.

Statement of Special Interest

The house's predecessor was the home of John Edmonstone and Eafame Wauchope, a marriage which succeeded in uniting two powerful families of the parish who had previously been feuding. Edmonstone was developing the local coalfields, for which the area was renowned. It is believed the adjacent dovecot was part of an earlier complex on the site (see separate listing, reference 14180). The property was sold, only to return generations later to the Wauchope family.

Two estate maps of 1754 and 1756 show the present house and its walled garden within the context of 18th century Newton, a small but prosperous farm settlement (none of which now survives) (Johnstoun 1754; Leslie 1756; Third 1957). As the main, high-status residence during this period, Newton House occupied a prominent position in the landscape and the earliest field boundaries were designed to correspond with the alignment of the house and garden walls.

The house underwent major renovations (circa 1820) when the interior was turned around, with the rear becoming the main elevation. A 3-storey wing was added in 1835, hiding the proportions of the original frontage, which had been a central block flanked by projecting single bay wings with piended roofs. There is also a cottage / garage range to the rear of the property.

The walled garden is part of the domestic architectural complex of Newton House and forms part of the same listing. Mainly pre-dating 1754, it is a relatively early example of a walled garden which survives mostly ntact. In places, the walls measure 2 to 2.5 metres in height, which is unusually high for a walled garden.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1854 shows that by this date, the present extent of the garden enclosure had been achieved, with ancillary structures, further walls and dividing walls creating a larger and more complex garden, compared with the simple, rectangular plan walled garden of the 1750s (Johnstoun 1754; Leslie 1756; Third 1957). The bricks on the long, brick-lined dividing wall are of a large, irregular, hand-made type which suggests a relatively early date for this wall (likely 18th century and certainly pre 1850s).

The Wauchope family remained the owners of Newton House until 1945 when it was sold to Charles Cowan, the paper manufacturer who renovated it and used it as his own home. His wife, Margaret Cowan, was a keen amateur gardener who established a traditionalist-inspired planting scheme within the garden walls from 1906-1920. Descendants still own it. It is closely linked with Newton Farmhouse and improvement steading nearby, thought to have been built as a home farm for the property. These and the Newton House dovecot are listed separately (see references 14181, 47733 and 14180 respectively).

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2015. Previously listed as Millerhill, Newton House including walls and gatepiers.

References

Bibliography

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