Norton House, Somerset

Records show plans for the house by Thomas Savage being laid out in 1789 on the land, close to the centre of Midsomer Norton.

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.

[5] Around 1866 an obelisk monument with two marble plaques was built at the site of St Chad's Well near the boundary of the grounds, close to Midsomer Norton town centre, by the mother of Major Frederick Stukeley Savage to her son who had been injured in the Crimean War.

"Here, in the evenings, the pathetic, wizened Mrs Savage was conducted in her wheel chair, attended by her faithful henchman, Jonah Shearn.

The path to the well was set with shrubs, and if any weed had grown between their stems, the wheel chair was stopped before the offending vegetable, and Jonah, trowel in hand, dug it up and cast it in the stream that babbled by.

[1] Photographs of the house show a typically Georgian mansion in the conventional classical style, with lawns, landscaped gardens and a conservatory.

In the early 21st century part of the house's grounds next to the restored Midsomer Norton railway station was designated as Silver Street Nature Reserve.