Blagdon Manor

Blagdon Manor is a manor house now converted to a clubhouse and bar for a caravan site. Dating from the 15th century with significant later alterations, it is shown on Ordnance Survey maps as Blagdon Barton.

The house is built of local red breccia rubble, partially rendered and colour-washed, with a slate roof featuring early crested ridge tiles and brick chimneys with red breccia shafts. It follows a courtyard plan, arranged over two storeys.

The south front is asymmetrical and comprises a hall block in the centre flanked by a one-window block set back at the left end and a porch block to the right. The hall block features deep coved eaves. The porch block projects slightly forward and is topped with a tall parapet with cornice, crowned by a brick bellcote. The hall windows are two three-light transomed moulded stone openings with square-headed hoodmoulds and label stops, accompanied by a datestone of 1567. To the left is a two-light inner room window with paired sashes and 20th-century leaded panes. Above are two two-light first-floor windows with 20th-century casements and square leaded panes. The porch block contains a 16th-century pilastered segmental-headed stone doorway with moulded keyblock and spandrels, now fitted with a 20th-century two-leaf half-glazed door. A fine double hollow-chamfered stone inner doorway with cushion stops and a 17th-century plank and stud door with ornamental strap hinges opens into the hall. Above this doorway is a small two-light stone window with Tudor-arched lights containing old glass and some stained glass fragments. The porch block also has two 20th-century ground-floor casement windows and a nine-pane fixed first-floor window, both with square leaded panes. The left-end addition has two-light 20th-century casements on both ground and first floors.

The six-bay east front features a slightly canted corner at the south end, with six first-floor eighteen-pane sashes (all 20th-century horned replacements), two 20th-century doors, and four ground-floor windows, one preserving a red sandstone chamfered frame.

The south range contains the hall, heated from a rear lateral stack with an entrance at the right end and an opposed rear door. An inner room to the left is heated from an end stack. The left-end room now sits partly beneath the roofline of the east wing, which has been substantially altered internally and was probably re-windowed in the 18th century, with a puzzling fireplace position on the party wall with the hall. The hall range extends to the rear to incorporate an axial passage and stair (replaced in the late 20th century). The north range, heated from an east end stack, may have functioned as a kitchen on the ground floor (with a massive blocked fireplace) but contains a high-quality room on the first floor. A courtyard partially infilled with 20th-century buildings.

Interior features include the hall, open to the roof, with a late 19th or early 20th-century roof construction supported on moulded stone corbels. The fireplace, though somewhat altered, retains a massive moulded frame above containing armorial bearings dated 1708 with the initials E B for Edward Blount. A 20th-century gallery has been installed in the hall. A moulded stone doorway with cushion stops opposes the front door. A medieval hollow-chamfered doorway leads to the lower end from the passage. The lower end contains a four-centred moulded stone fireplace backing onto the passage. A fine 17th-century moulded oak doorframe (now not in situ) with floral carvings above urn stops survives. The inner room has a plainer stone fireplace with chamfered jambs and a medieval hollow-chamfered doorway into the axial passage, possibly relocated from the cross passage. A 17th-century blocked moulded doorframe stands to the north of the east wing. A moulded timber doorframe with truncated jambs leads to the north range across the courtyard. The ground floor room of the north range has a ceiling of intersecting chamfered beams of large scantling and a blocked fireplace. The first-floor room above features a ceiled wagon roof with chamfered ribs. A Tudor chimney-piece in the first-floor room is mentioned in earlier descriptions and by Pevsner but was not observed during the survey. The east wing contains sets of early 19th-century doors. The roof of the east range was not inspected but may be of architectural interest.

Blagdon Manor was the home of the Kirkham family from the 13th to the 17th century.