The Abbots

The Abbots is a house dating to the late 18th century, with alterations from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to local historian Polwhele, it was built in 1790 by the Reverend Herman Drewe. The house is constructed of whitewashed and rendered stone rubble, with a two-span slate roof, gabled at the ends. It has stacks on the left and right ends, and a rear left lateral stack, all with dismantled shafts. The plan is double-depth, with two rooms wide and a wide entrance hall, where the staircase rises at the rear left.

The symmetrical three-bay front features a central open timber porch supported by posts with a moulded cornice, and a recessed front door with panelled reveals. Original sash windows, likely from the 18th or early 19th century, are present on the first floor, with tripartite timber sashes to the left and right. Later ground floor windows are bay windows with tent roofs, glazed with transomed casements and small panes above the transom. A similar bay window is located on the left return, along with 12-pane sashes and a pair of 2-light casements to the attic. The right return also has similar attic windows. The rear elevation displays 18th-century casements with square leaded panes, along with a late 18th or 19th-century 12-pane timber sash and a 20th-century back door.

Internally, the principal front rooms have plaster cornices – one being decorated – elaborate chimney-pieces (said to have been imported from Venice in the 20th century), deep skirting boards, and original joinery. The staircase is of older design, featuring an open string, slender turned balusters, a flat-topped ramped handrail, and a dado of fielded panelling. A flag floor remains in the rear of the entrance hall and the axial passage that once led to the kitchen. Herman Drewe, of the Drewe family of Grange, Broadhembury, was associated with the property as Rector of Wooton Fitzpaine and perpetual curate of Sheldon, owning the estate through his mother. The Abbots was once the centre of the Combe Raleigh Estate.