Feniton Court

Feniton Court is a manor house, likely dating to the early 19th century, though believed by the owner to have been built in 1788. It incorporates the remains of an earlier house, possibly from the 17th century, with a billiard room and entrance porch added in 1927. The construction blends cob on stone rubble footings with brick and stone rubble, featuring stone rubble and brick stacks with plastered brick chimneyshafts and some early 19th-century chimney pots. The roof is slate covered.

The house follows a large, roughly T-shaped plan. The main block, facing south-east, accommodates the principal rooms and has a four-room layout - two rooms on either side of a central entrance lobby containing the main staircase. The end rooms are larger, forming projecting crosswings, with the left room serving as a library. A service block extends at right angles to the rear, slightly right of centre, and has parallel roofs. The rooms are largely heated by axial stacks. While the central two rooms of the main block seem to occupy the footprint of an earlier 17th-century building, no evidence of this earlier structure remains visible.

The front facade displays a symmetrical arrangement of three bays, five bays, and three bays, with ground floor windows being 15-pane sashes and first floor windows being 12-pane sashes. The end sections feature full-height curving bay windows. A central doorway is framed by 20th-century glazed double doors with an overlight, sheltered by a limestone ashlar verandah with a moulded cornice and parapet supported by pairs of Tuscan columns. A flat plat band runs at first floor level on the front and left (south-west) end wall, complemented by a moulded eaves cornice and plain parapet above. The main block’s central roof section is gable-ended, while the crosswings have hipped roofs. Windows on the ends are similar to those on the front, and have stucco keystones. The secondary doorway on the left end has a panelled door with side lights and a Tuscan porch, dating back to 1927. The service block’s windows are primarily 12-pane sashes.

The interior was not inspected, but it is said to contain a wealth of early 19th-century joinery. The main staircase, however, is a 20th-century replacement designed in a late 17th-century style. Feniton Court is situated in an attractive village alongside other listed buildings and stands close to the Church of St Andrew. It occupies the site of a former manor house and was once the residence of the Northcott family, as well as the Right Honourable Sir John Patterson.