Plympton House (St Peters Convent)

Plympton House, now known as St Peter's Convent, is a country house built around 1700 for the Treby family, specifically Sir George Treby, who was the Lord Chief Justice. It is likely designed by the same architect who worked on Mothecombe and Puslinch. The mason recorded in 1720 is George Veale. The front and rear elevations are made of limestone ashlar, while the sides are brick with limestone dressings, including moulded architraves and rusticated quoins. The house features a dry slate hipped roof behind a parapet with a moulded cornice and large brick axial stacks with limestone dressings.

The building has a large rectangular plan with a central stair hall and is two storeys high over a basement. Both the front and rear elevations are symmetrical with seven windows, featuring centre breaks topped by pediments that display heraldic achievements. The original sash windows have thick glazing bars and are set within moulded architraves, with elliptical-arched windows in the basement. The main entrance is approached by a flight of stone steps with wrought-iron balustrades.

Inside, there is a large entrance hall leading to an east-west corridor. The staircase occupies the entire southeast corner of the house and is exceptionally ornate, with four graduated balusters on each tread, a handrail that ends in a virtuoso roll, and a landing adorned with Corinthian-column newels. The interior also boasts much bolection-moulded panelling, corner fireplaces, and two fine Baroque marble chimneypieces with oval centres—one in the hall flanked by fluted pilasters and the other in the drawing room featuring scroll volutes. The spacious service rooms in the basement are notable for their elegant groin vaults on piers, similar to those found at Puslinch and Mothecombe.