Garden Walls Approximately 1.5 Metres West Of Mill House

OTTERTON THE GREEN, Otterton SY 08 NE 3/179 Garden walls approximately 1.5 metres west of Mill House 30.6.61 GV II Garden walls belonging to Mill House (q.v.). Mostly late C17 but patched with later brick. A part rebuilt after it was destroyed by a flood in 1967 once included a date, thought to be 1691, picked out in black bricks. Hand-made local red brick including some burnt black bricks, stone rubble footings (and some patching to rear); doorway of coarse yellow sandstone ashlar. The bonding is erratic. Sections can be found of English garden wall bond but most tends to a stretcher bond. Tall brick walls enclosing a rectangular garden separated from Mill House only by the mill leat. The south-western front wall (facing the road) has been raised with C19 brick at the right end and near the right end it includes a C17 stone doorway. Most of the brickwork is original but a section of the left (north-western) side was rebuilt in 1967 and the top of the rear wall is patched with stone rubble. The footings line the bank of the mill leat on the right and the bank of the leat overflow channel to rear. The walls have steep coping sloping outwards to a projecting cornice and part of the front wall has a diagonal dentil cornice of projecting brick corners. The front wall contains the only original doorway. It is a low segmental arch with a projecting keystone and an ovolo-moulded surround. It was undoubtedly erected with the wall in the late C17 but it looks awkward as if made up and adapted from pieces of an earlier arch. Maybe the stones came from the ruins of the monastery which once stood on nearby Church Hill in the village. This is quite an early use of brick in rural Devon, a reflection of the status of the Duke family who owned the nearby mill and manor house. The initials RD were associated with the date destroyed in the 1967 flood. These garden walls along with Mill House (q.v.), Otterton Mill (q.v.) and its stables (q.v.) form a strong group on the western approach to Otterton village which itself contains many attractive listed buildings.

Listing NGR: SY0796685261