Stable Yard and Service Buildings North West of Dawlish College (Mamhead House)

Details

MAMHEAD MAMHEAD PARK SW 98 SW

5/327 Stable yard and service buildings north west of Dawlish College 11.11.52 (Mamhead House)

GV II *

Stable yard including gatehouse, stables, brewery and associated service buildings with a drying yard. Converted for use as classrooms and sports facilities. 1828- 1833 by Anthony Salvin for Sir R.W. Newman, Bt. Red sandstone rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. Baronial Gothic, the brewery a copy of Belsay Castle in Northumbria. Plan: North-west of the house and high above it, the stable yard and service buildings are designed as a craggy, picturesque foil to Mamhead House (q.v. Dawlish College). The central courtyard is entered through a convincingly massive gatehouse, complete with portcullis at the north-west corner, with the stable ranges to the west, the brewery in the north east corner and a castellated wall along the east side overlooking the rear elevation of the house and an elevated drying yard which is outside the stableyard. The stable yard is entered on the east side (from the house) by flights of covered steps parallel to service rooms used as cellarage and laundries. Exterior: The Gatehouse: Massive squat gatehouse with left and right bastions with plinths and plain parapets, each with 2 first floor trefoil-headed slit windows and with an arrow slit on the inner, return. A moulded depressed 2-centred arched doorway with fake portcullis is recessed between the bastions with stepped castellations above and a segmental moulded arch in front of and above the door imitating the arrangement for boiling oil to be poured on to unwelcome visitors. The gateway is vaulted internally with red sandstone ribs with brick infill and shouldered doorways to left and right and a shouldered doorway leads out into the stableyard. The Stable Ranges: facing the yard the west range has 4 round-headed door,ways below small windows and, on the south side, a block with a central double-chamfered arch. Interior of stables not inspected: there have been some 1980s alterations within the west range where a concrete block wall has been built. The Brewery: Based on Belsay Castle, Northumbria. The siting of the brewery allowed beer, to be gravity fed to the cellars. 3-storey, embattled, with 3 corbelled-out rounded corner turrets and a fourth turret for the stair square on plan, facing into the stable yard. Shouldered doorframes; slit window some with cusped heads and paired trefoil-headed windows to the first floor, on each face with cusped detail above the arches. On the stable yard side there is a 4-light ground floor mullioned window and a corbelled-out garderobe feature on the second floor. The other faces are partly obscured by foliage. Interior: Not inspected but said to be partly vaulted. Service Ranges and Drying Yard: the service ranges have brick vaulted roofs. The drying yard is enclosed by red sandstone walls with stepped battlementing at each corner. Hussey, C. English Country Houses: Late Georgian (1958) Salvin's original drawings survive in the R.I.B.A. Drawings Collection.

Listing NGR: SX9296781138

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

85974

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Hussey, C, English Country Houses Late Georgian 1800 to 1840, (1958)

Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 11 Devon,

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