Description

NEWINGTON A329 SU6096 (West side) 15/41 Newington House 18/07/63

GV II*

Country house. c.1635 for Walter Dunch, altered c.1680 for Henry Dunch and re-modelled 1777 for George White. Coursed squared limestone rubble with ashlar dressings; Welsh-slate roof with stone stacks. Double-pile plan. 3 storeys plus basement. Symmetrical 7-window front, with rusticated quoins, moulded first-floor storey band and cornice below the top storey, has a central doorway with stone bolection doorcase, 8-panel double-leaf doors and a late C18 Corinthian porch. Windows have moulded stone architraves and 12-pane sashes except basement windows which have a rectangular stone mullion. Garden front is similar but has no porch and the door architrave is as the windows. Both front and rear entrances retain evidence for demolished segmental pediments. Double-span hipped roofs are concealed by plain parapets. To right of the main range is a single-storey late C18 service wing with 2 large Diocletian windows at the rear. Lead rainwater heads on the main range are inscribed "GW 1777". Interior: original features include the basement, with stop-chamfered beams and the remains of a very large fireplace with chamfered stone jambs, and at ground floor a timber-framed partition, formerly the wall of a closet, which has studs flush with the plaster and retains a painted skirting. A built-in doorcase between stair hall and saloon may also be original. The 3 principal rooms to rear and the stair hall all have good late C18 marble fireplaces and plaster cornices; the panelled saloon has fluting and medallions on doorcases and cornice, matching the porch decoration, and the hall has a deep triglyph frieze and mutule cornice with a triangular pediment to the saloon doorcase. The open-well stair has cantilevered oak treads and a ramped and wreathed handrail. The roof dates from the addition of the second floor in 1777 but retains timbers Iron the roof of c.1680, the tie beams of which survive insitu. It had a central platform and replaced the similar original roof for which there is evidence of a lower pitch. There is an elaborate system of drainage tunnels around the basement. The spacing of the front windows, in overlapping triplets, and many details of the plan bear a strong resemblance to Rubens' engravings of the Pallavicini Palace in his "Palazzi di Genova", published 1622. Dunch was closely related by marriage to the Pallavicini family. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.716; C. Maltin: Newington House, 1985).

Listing NGR: SU6086196460

External Links

• Wikidata Q17549037

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Recommended Books

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)