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This month sees the 100th anniversary of the death of one of Newark's most distinguished, but perhaps least well known, 19th Century figures, Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Newton (1830 - 1899).

Newton practised as a solicitor in Newark for many years, and while he may not be so well remembered as the town's great maltsters, brewers or engineers, he certainly played an equal role in the town's development.

He acted as secretary to the Newark Waterworks company (which was responsible for bringing the first piped water to the town), clerk to the Newark Burial Board (which oversaw the creation of the cemetery on London Road) and was clerk to the local Board of Guardians.

He also acted as solicitor to the Newark Advertiser, was a county coroner and clerk to both the Borough Justices and the Newark Rural District Council.

Newton Street is named after him and, as a prominent Freemason, he established the local Newton Lodge. In 1875 he built Hillside (pictured), a large house on a prime position on top of Beacon Hill, where he lived for the last 25 years or so of his life.

In more recent times the house was renamed Beacon Heights and found use as a residential nursing home for the elderly. Towards the end of last year it was bought by Mr Anwaar Rashid of Nottingham and has reopened to residents under the name Park View.

Describing the house during its heyday in the 19th Century, the Newark Advertiser commented that, set within its 20-acre grounds, Mr Newton could hardly have chosen a more favourable site anywhere around Newark.

It said: "Stretching below the house is a picturesque sweep of landscape, the distant hill on the opposite side of the valley being crowned by Belvoir's lordly heights.

"The view is one of unusual attractiveness and with the same wisdom with which Mr Newton chose the site, he built his entrance lodge, erected his greenhouses, made his avenue, planted his orchard and gardens and arranged the plan of the mansion so as to give the maximum comfort and convenience in every part."

On the ground floor was a dining room (with south and west aspects), drawing room, morning room, housekeeper's room, servants' hall, kitchen, scullery, pantries, store rooms and dairy with both covered and open yards.

A stone staircase led to the first floor where there were five bedrooms, a boudoir, bathroom and a 23ft billiard room.

The servants' bedrooms were located on the second floor together with a linen room.

It was Mr Newton's constant pleasure, concluded the report, that outside his dining room window, a stately avenue of trees focused his gaze directly onto the spire of Newark parish church.

William Newton was a native of Chatteris in Cambridgeshire and was educated at Oundle Grammar School. He was first articled to his uncle, a solicitor and town clerk in Retford and was himself admitted a solicitor in Retford in 1852.

He came to Newark shortly afterwards and entered partnership in the practice of George Harrison and Robert Caparn on Kirkgate. Following the death of both Harrison and Caparn (the latter in 1858) Newton continued the practice alone.

Over subsequent years he greatly expanded the business and moved into new premises on Middlegate.

When Newton first came to Newark in the 1850s, he lived in a house near the bowling green on London Road. He later moved to Baldertongate, from where, in 1875, he and his wife took up residence at Hillside, their new, purpose-built mansion on Beacon Hill.

Here Mr Newton became a keen horticulturalist, taking personal control of all the ornamental and orchard plantings throughout the grounds.

He created an extensive array of glasshouses in which peaches, nectarines, melon and grapes flourished. Separate frames were devoted to cucumbers and mushrooms.

He became a frequent contributor to gardening periodicals and often acted as a judge at horticultural shows in the Newark area. Mr Newton's military rank derived from the years he spent in the Newark Volunteer Regiment which he joined in 1859.

He entered as a lieutenant and progressed through captain and major to reach Honorary Lieutenant Colonel in July 1885.

He was considered an excellent horseman and a sure shot, on one occasion making seven bullseyes in succession at 500yds using an old muzzle-loading rifle.

In accordance with the regulations for age he retired from active military service in 1883, but moved straight into an administrative position as supply and transport officer with the North Midland Brigade.

William Newton died aged 69 on February 6, 1899, in his home at Hillside.

His wife had died some years earlier and the house and its contents were immediately put up for sale by public auction.

Every single item was knocked down to individual buyers, and by 1904 the house is listed as in the occupation of Mr Henry Leonard Reynard.

He was followed in the early Twenties by Frank Dalton, who, I understand, had run a successful butchery business in Nottingham.

In the late Fifties Mr Dalton was succeeded at Hillside by Harold F. Linke who worked for Alec Adams, the tailors, of Lombard Street.

The house was first converted to a nursing home for the elderly in the early Sixties.

ABOVE: Hillside on Beacon Hill, the mansion built by William Newton in 1875, is now a residential home for the elderly under the name Park View.

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