Fordmoor Farmhouse Including Front Garden Walls And Gate Piers

Fordmoor Farmhouse is a small mansion and former manor house dating to the late 17th century, with some 20th-century modernisations. It is constructed in English bond local handmade red brick on stone rubble footings, with brick stacks and chimneyshafts, and a slate roof which probably replaced original thatch. The house is notable as an early example for Devon of a brick country mansion, possibly one of the earliest in the region.

The building follows an L-plan with the main block containing a 3-room plan. The right east room serves as the parlour with a rear lateral stack, while the principal chamber above has a projecting end stack on timber and moulded brick corbels. The centre features a large entrance hall containing the main stair against the back wall. The left west room is the dining room with an end stack. The kitchen occupies the rear block behind the dining room and has its own end stack. The house is 2 storeys with attics, and a conservatory dating to around 1980 stands at the front of the left end. Behind the main block, 20th-century service outshots have replaced an earlier farmhouse which survived into living memory and had been converted to service use.

The exterior retains high quality original features. The front originally had a symmetrical 9-window arrangement, though the end windows are now blocked and obscured by the modern conservatory. The remaining windows are original oak mullion-and-upper-transom windows containing smaller than usual rectangular panes of leaded glass, including some probably original green-tinged panes. Several iron casements are original and retain ornate wrought iron catches. Low segmental brick arches span the ground floor windows. A flat brick platband at first floor level steps up over the central doorway. The bead-moulded oak doorframe and mullioned overlight are original, though the panelled doors are secondary. The flat-roofed porch with moulded entablature and modillion cornice is original, although its supporting posts have been replaced. The eaves cornice is plain, and the tall steeply pitched roof is hipped at both ends, as is the rear block. The stair rises above the rear roof pitch beneath its own hipped roof. Windows around the rest of the house are mostly original. The rear platbands rise like hoodmoulds over the stair windows, creating a sectional panelled appearance.

The interior is well-preserved and contains a great deal of original carpentry, joinery and plaster. The main stair is a good dogleg stair rising along the axis of the main block, with a moulded closed string, square newel posts with ball finials, flat moulded handrail and large turned balusters. The principal parlour is lined with bolection-moulded panelling in two heights and includes a good chimneypiece. The principal chamber above contains an identical chimneypiece and a ceiling with an original moulded plaster cornice and ornamental plasterwork oval made up of moulded oak leaves. The dining room and chamber above retain the remains of moulded plaster cornices, both of which appear to indicate that parts of these rooms were partitioned off as closets or lobbies. Both chimneypieces here are replacements. The kitchen has a high ceiling carried on exposed axial beams. Although the fireplace is blocked, its chamfered and step-stopped oak lintel remains exposed. The roof is carried on original A-frame trusses with pegged and spike lap-jointed collars. Some of the rear principals curve into the wall like crucks with short feet.

From each end of the front brick walls, brick extends forward then returns across the front, enclosing the front garden. These walls were probably built at the same time as the house, though most has been rebuilt. Only the east side and the front gate posts appear original. The gate posts are square in section and have volcanic ashlar caps with ball finials.

The Ford family lived on the site from the reign of Henry II until 1702. They probably built the house in the late 17th century, and in the early 18th century it was occupied by Charles Philpot, esquire. The house has undergone only minor modernisations since its construction.