The Bear'S Hut 220 Metres North North West Of Killerton House

SX 99 NE BROADCLYST KILLERTON PARK

2/104 The Bear's Hut 220 metres north - north west of Killerton House

• II*

Summer house. Built before 1831. Split timbers under a hipped wheat reed thatched roof. Single storeyed; 3-bay front the centre projecting with window or oriel, on struts, 5 lights, with 16 leaded panes plus margin panes to each light, to the left of the entrance. One rear lancet window inserted into a massive hewn tree-trunk forms the 'east' window to a single-celled 'hermitage' in one of 3 internal divisions; 2 side windows to this tiny chapel, one of 2, the other of 3 lights, all ogee headed. The 3-light window retains its original chamfered jambs and mullions and some glazing bars. Interior: the 'hermitage' with a rustic wooden 'chancel arch', 'vaulted arch', 'vaulted apse' and 'sedilia', the whole roofed in deer skins, and floored in deers' knuckle-bones. The lancet window contains fragments of high-quality painted glass with a dated panel which reads: 'Reverendus adm : ac Amplisimus Dominus David Brockmans S.T.B.F. Decanns halselensis et peullis : Capituli inunsterblisiensis Canonicus necnon huius conventus confesarius. Anno 1696'. The other fragments consist of faces and bits of Latin block script. The central room, with corner fireplace, is lined and roofed in matting, and decorated with pine cones, the floor inlaid with oak tree-trunk sections. The right-hand room cobbled, with walls and roof of wicker work. Approached up a path of 4 steps. Note on dating : the Bear's Hut is illustrated in a set of drawings by John Gendall of Exeter of 1831 and is an interesting and eccentric early-C19 piece of picturesque rustic garden furniture,(fragments of Killerton). See Lady Ann Acland, Killerton (National -Trust, 1983) pp. 18-19.

Listing NGR: SS9714100154