Later that decade, Norton's reputation was enhanced with commissions to build
Nutley Priory near
Redhill, (
Surrey), for the banker E.H.Gurney,
Brent Knoll in the
West Country for G.S.Poole, and
Chewton Magna Manor for W.Adlam. John Norton's greatest commission was now on the horizon.
William Gibbs (1790–1875) had become a partner in the family trading company and by the time of
Queen Victoria's accession in 1837 had, with his brother
Henry, circumspectly steered their business through the
French Wars and the dissolution of Spanish colonial interests. William became sole owner in 1842 and the following 40 years produced annual profits that would have reached beyond his ancestors' imagining. Gibbs'
Peruvian office had secured contracts for the export to Britain of
guano, the nitrogen-rich deposits of seabird droppings that became a principal fertiliser for the increase of wheat yields. William Gibbs now required a country seat for his family away from London and in 1843 purchased
Tyntes Place, an attractive house with relatively simple and plain internal decoration that overlooked the
Bristol Channel. The house had been rebuilt to the conservative tastes of a Reverend Seymour and further improved by
Nailsea architect Robert Newton after 1836. During the 1850s the celebrated designer
John Gregory Crace (1809–89), who had worked closely with Augustus Pugin, was commissioned by Gibbs to make improvements to the London house at 16
Hyde Park Gardens, and also to refurbish
Tyntesfield House, as it was now officially referred to. Norton was first invited to Tyntesfield on 21 August 1860, when Gibbs outlined his needs for further expansion to his country seat. The meeting went well and in March the following year, with fellow ecclesiastical architect
Rohde Hawkins, introductions were made to the builders
William Cubitt & Co. in London, and meetings held with senior partner
George Plucknett. It was Plucknett who held the responsibility for executing Norton's designs. Cubitts had built
Osborne House for Queen Victoria on the
Isle of Wight, and thus came with the highest recommendations. Norton's dramatic designs were completed by 1863 and the extensive re-modelling of Tyntesfield commenced in October. The building work took over two years and was completed close to the £70,000 budget allowed for it. Reverend Seymour's restrained
Regency house had been utterly absorbed, doubled in size and transformed into a soaring Gothic-revival masterpiece bristling with ornamentation born from its diverse construction elements. Though quite new, the range of buildings gave the appearance of having grown over a much longer period of time. Pinnacles, gables, crenellated towers, stained glass, plain glass and leaded light windows harmonised in a testimony to Norton's visionary skills and balance, and Plucknett's craftmanship. The interiors of the vast house were just as breathtaking. 'Norton's creation was quite extraordinary. He had combined the Gothic beauty of holiness with a reverence for nature. He created domestic architecture based on the recent collegiate buildings in Oxford. Suddenly, too, the tenets of Ruskin and Pugin have become transfixed in stone.' Tyntesfield remains at the zenith of Norton's designs but his architectural practice continued the ecclesiastical, country house and suburban output for which he was now rightly celebrated.
St John the Evangelist's in Middlesbrough dates from 1865. Between 1866 and 1875 Norton built and restored
parish churches in
South Wales: St. David's,
Neath,(1866), St. Matthew,
Llanelwydd and the parish church of
Builth Wells, (1870). In 1875, he re-designed the west wall of St. Thomas the Apostle,
Redwick, Newport, inserting a large window. Norton's occasional forays into suburban architecture, notably
Berkeley Square, Clifton, and the Crystal Palace estate designs, re-emerged in 1871 when the south side of
Crystal Palace Park was developed and Norton's London practice designed a series of houses. From 1867–72, he lived at nearby
Lichfield House, a house he designed together with its neighbour Eardley House owned by Charles Umney of Wright, Layman and Umney, manufacturers of Wright's Coal Tar Soap. In 1873 he moved to 'St. Helens' 55 Crystal Palace Road where he remained until 1881. Norton also continued with his country house commissions and in 1884, re-modelled and enlarged
Badgemore House, west of
Henley in Oxfordshire for
Richard Ovey. During this period he designed Dalewood House in
Mickleham,
Surrey. The house now serves as the main building of
Box Hill School a
Public School in the village which was established in 1959 by Roy McComish, a former house master and art master at
Gordonstoun School who developed the school under the same principles as Gordonstoun's founder
Kurt Hahn Norton returned to South Wales in 1887 to design
Gwyn Hall, the principal civic building and music hall for
Neath Port Talbot. This handsome structure with its fine windows and trademark colonnade of Gothic arches cost £6,000 to design and build. It was recently undergoing a £4 million facelift when a fire gutted the building in 2007. Fortunately, Norton's exterior has mostly survived. In the 1890s, Norton was commissioned to design
Saint Helen's Church,
Lundy Island, by the then owner, the Rev'd Hudson Grosset Heaven. St Helen's stands prominently on the top of the island and, visible from the sea on all sides, is the island's most conspicuous landmark. The church is built largely of Lundy granite and the 65-foot-high tower houses 8 bells. The high church interior of polychromed brick is enhanced by some good stained glass (though the fine east window has been partially blocked up due to weather damage) and a beautiful reredos of carved alabaster by
Harry Hems of Exeter. St Helen's was completed in 1896 and consecrated by the Bishop of Exeter in 1897. Other than his dynamic, traditional Christian faith and the references from William Gibbs' business-like diary, which note his satisfaction as to the progress at Tyntesfield, we know little of John Norton's personality. One intriguing and revealing insight however is illuminated from the autobiography of the great author
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928). Norton's London practice was in
Old Bond Street, and in April 1862, despite being fully staffed he agreed that the young Hardy, who at the time sought apprenticeship in architecture,'...should come daily to the office and make drawings'. The biography, (penned in fact by Hardy's second wife Florence), records that, 'he proved himself to be one of the best helps Hardy ever had' Other projects he was associated with include
Berkeley Square, Bristol, for which in 1851 he made the replica of the
Bristol High Cross which stands in the square; the Manor House in
Chew Magna;
St Audries Park; the college of
St Matthias, Bristol; and
Christ Church, Clifton Down, Bristol. This church was built by
Charles Dyer in 1841. Norton added the steeple, which reaches , in 1859. Norton died on 10 November 1904 and was buried in
Bournemouth, Dorset. ==References==