This house sits at the west end of the village on the north side of St Mary’s Church. It was built before 1778 as the property appeared on the Tithe Map of that year, and was extended in the 19th century. Although the property now adjoins the churchyard, originally there was a path between the burial ground and the house. Stone Cottage was one of several properties fronting onto the churchyard in what was known as Church Row.
The house is built in squared coursed limestone and has a Collyweston slate roof. It is a single storey building with an attic. The central window of the three facing the Church on the ground floor originally housed a door onto Church Row. Entrance to the property is now from the back. Both the gable ends house casement windows which were installed during the 19th century. The wall surrounding the courtyard on the east side of the house holds a gravestone that was uncovered from an inside room fireplace when the house was renovated in 1965. The stone has the inscription “tombstone to John Desbrow, 26 October 1719”. Was the house built on a piece of land which housed the tombstone so in order to save it, it was incorporated within the house? This wall and the house were Grade II Listed in 1988.
It is known that a family by the name of Desborough (Desbrow) lived in the house in 1778, and from the censuses we know that the family name still existed in Woodnewton throughout the 1800’s, but whether they lived at Stone Cottage cannot be confirmed. Ezekiel Desbow was the last of the family to live in the village until his death in 1918. He is buried in the churchyard.
When the 1901 census was issued, this property was listed as a ‘private house’. Was that because most of the properties in the village belonged to the Westmorland Estate at Apethorpe, but Stone Cottage was privately owned? We know that Robert Smith, a gentleman farmer, lived in the property between 1861 until he died in 1871 and left the house to his nephew William Strickson, a harness maker. William Strickson lived in the farmhouse known as Spinney Farm, in Town Street.
George Hull and family lived at Stone Cottage for over 40 years 
in the early 1900’s and it was after his wife, Margaret Annie died in 1965, that the cottage underwent a major renovation programme. Several families have lived at the Cottage since and it was in the 1980’s when Andrew Downing lived at the property that this cottage housed the Village Air Raid Siren
The present owner has lived at the property since 2007.
2022