Walls, Including Gate Piers and Folly, Enclosing the Courtyard and (Former) Gardens to the South and West of Churston Court

Walls, including gate piers and folly, enclosing the courtyard and former gardens to the south and west of Churston Court

A series of early to mid 19th-century walls, or possibly earlier, situated to the west and south of Churston Court. The walls are built of stone rubble and stand approximately 3.5 metres high, finished with flat stone coping or rounded coping of stones on edge. The outer walls are strengthened by stone rubble buttresses at regular intervals.

The walls enclose a large rectangular area of approximately 0.64 hectares, subdivided by internal walls into three enclosures plus a courtyard. The outer wall to the south-west runs for approximately 160 metres southward to Churston Road, where it turns east and then follows the line of the road leading to Churston Court.

The courtyard is situated immediately in front of Churston Court (listed Grade II*). Most of the east wall has flat stone coping, but the rear part is taller, plastered, and has a blocked window at the top, presumably a remnant of an added building since demolished. The front wall is lower with rounded coping of stones on edge and contains two square gate piers with low pyramidal caps marking the entrance to Churston Court.

To the west, the courtyard opens into a garden walled on all sides except where it adjoins the courtyard. Attached to the wall in its far north-west corner stands a small square structure, probably a garden folly. It is entered through a wide four-centred arch with a viewing platform above, enclosed by a low battlemented parapet wall. Immediately south lies the second walled garden, now partly in use as a car park. Along its north wall are the remaining footprints of small garden buildings and greenhouses (evident from Ordnance Survey maps of 1894, 1906 and 1936). In the south wall, just off-centre, is a round arched opening with wooden doors of later date, giving access to a large rectangular walled enclosure, probably the former kitchen garden, now in use as a tennis court with associated modern buildings. These stand on the footprints of earlier garden buildings and greenhouses that stood along its north and east walls. The main entrance is an approximately 2-metre-wide opening with wooden gates of later date in the south wall along Churston Road.

The walls enclose the courtyard, former ornamental gardens and kitchen garden of Churston Court, a large house dating from the mid or late 16th century, remodelled in the 17th century with 18th and 19th-century additions. During the mid 19th century the Buller family of nearby Lupton House owned Churston Court, which was described in White's Directory of Devonshire of 1850 as "the ancient seat of the Yardes, which has lately been modernised, and has tasteful grounds".