The Manor House (Rnib)

THE MANOR HOUSE (RNIB)

House, now training centre. Built 1862–4 and circa 1890 by JR Rowell for Sir Lawrence Palk. Constructed in random coursed limestone with stone dressings and slate roofs. A large semi-rural house in restrained Gothic style.

The main plan comprises a rectangular block disposed around a central stair hall, with a kitchen and stable court to the north-west. A billiard room was added to the north-east corner circa 1890.

The exterior shows two storeys and attics to the main block, with two storeys to the wing. The principal elevation faces south towards the garden and comprises five bays, each of two-and-a-half storeys with the central bays set back. Windows are two- and three-light stone mullioned with vertical sashes; those on the ground floor have transoms. Stone relieving arches sit above the lintels. Dormer gables feature decorative bargeboards with cross braces. The right-hand bay is half-hipped with bargeboards and contains a three-light oriel window at first floor, supported by a buttress decorated with ballflower and zig-zag mouldings on oversailing courses. At ground floor level are two pointed-arch windows. The south-west corner features an angled porte-cochere, a high single-storey structure with plate tracery, balustrading and coats of arms. Angled buttresses support octagonal finials at each corner, and the south-west wall contains two lights within a semicircular relieving arch. The carriage arches are segmental-pointed in polychrome stonework; the garden-side arch has been boarded up at some point. The vestibule contains a patterned marble floor and encaustic tiling.

The billiard room, now the dining room, appears to have been added at the north-east corner circa 1890 and features an attractive stone mullioned and transomed corner window with an octagonal spire above at the south-eastern corner.

To the rear lies a range of stables and coach houses in coursed rubble limestone with dressed stone quoins and window details. It spans seven bays of one-and-a-half storeys height, with a central two-storey gabled clock tower and bell-cote over the carriage entrance.

The interior retains a high two-storey entrance hall with a first-floor gallery. An imperial staircase features a five-light stained glass window at the landing containing the family coats of arms. An ornamental stone fireplace with a French Gothic hood occupies the ground floor of the hall. Other principal ground-floor rooms contain similar fireplaces and overmantels, several of elaborate Jacobean character. The former billiard room at the rear features an interesting barrel-vaulted ceiling with a full-height hood over the fireplace in the eastern gable wall. Original joinery and plasterwork survive almost completely throughout the house.

The Palk family was responsible for much early development of Torquay during the first half of the 19th century, particularly the Lincombe and Warberry areas. Sir Lawrence Palk was a major benefactor to the town and later became Baron Haldon of Haldon in April 1880, dying in 1883. The house subsequently became associated with Sir Francis Layland-Barratt, who purchased the manor in 1906. It now serves as the national rehabilitation centre for the Royal National Institution for the Blind, with only minor alterations made to accommodate this use. It remains a remarkably unaltered example of a large Victorian family house.