page_title: Norton House, Somerset
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Norton House, Somerset / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Stone gate columns at former grounds of Norton House, Midsomer Norton.
context_page_description: Norton House was a mansion in Midsomer Norton, Somerset. It was built around 1789 by the Savage family, investors in mines in the Somerset Coalfield. It was demolished in 1937-8 to make way for housing but several features from the house and its estate survive to this day.
context_section_description: A Duchy of Cornwall estate map of 1787 shows the grounds of Norton House acquired by Thomas Savage. Records show plans for the house by Thomas Savage being laid out in 1789 on the land, close to the centre of Midsomer Norton.  It is likely there was an earlier house on the site. The Savage family were major investors in mines in the Somerset Coalfield.  Woods were planted on adjacent sloping land as a landscape feature when Norton House was built.
  Thomas Savage arranged for mine sinkers to build a springhead on a hill overlooking the house, so running water could be supplied to the house. In 2013 the springhead was restored using remnants of the original pipes. With the formation of the Midsomer Norton Water Works Company in 1881, the springhead was no longer required. At that point it appears to have been converted to use as an ice house. 
  For this purpose, the oval outline of the brick-built cistern was covered with a stone vault and buried under a mound of earth to provide insulation against the outside air. The ice would have been obtained in winter from the neighbouring shallow artificial pond nearby which appears to have been created especially for this purpose and survives to this day.
  The stone gate piers from Norton House survive in Silver Street, Midsomer Norton and have been incorporated into the gateway of a modern house. Along with the cast iron gates themselves (no longer onsite) they were grade II listed in 1979. The gate piers date to the 1830s; the panelled gate piers have a cross-gabled capping above a honeysuckle frieze while the gates had flower designs between the rails. Norton House lay a short distance to the south of the gate.
caption: Stone gate columns at former grounds of Norton House, Midsomer Norton.
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