Mount Dinham House

SX 9192 NE MOUNT DINHAM 871/2/10087 Mount Dinham House 23-JUN-00

GV II

School, 1862, originally a church school (Greenaway) funded and founded by William Gibbs, an Exeter born merchant. Architect unknown to date. Flemish bond red brick with stone dressings, some painted white; slate roof; cast iron rainwater goods. C17 style in the manner of a university college building. Plan: Sited on the side of St Davids Hill and overlooking the Exe valley down a vista formed by two rows of the Mount Dinham Free Cottages (q.v.) also built by Gibbs (Pevsner). The school is sympathetic in style to the Free Cottages and the group is given a picturesque asymmetrical accent by St Michael's Church (q.v.), also funded by Gibbs. Long rectangular main range with rear left projecting block, forming an approximate U-plan with 2 separately listed detached buildings at either end to the front. Exterior: 2 storeys. Symmetrical 6:1:6-bay front, each bay divided by buttresses with set-offs and gabled to the front with coped gables and a coped parapet between; slightly taller gables in the 4th bay from the centre on either side. The centre bay has a shaped, coped Dutch gable and stone quoins. Canted bay window to the ground floor with an embattled parapet and transomed stone windows. Round-headed doorways in the returns of the bay have plank doors with tarp hinges. First floor window in centre bay is 3-light, transomed with a hoodmould. The other windows all have quoined jambs, the ground floor windows with hoodmoulds. The ground floor windows have been reglazed with 3-pane lights with margin panes. The first floor windows are 3-light with high transoms, glazed with probably C20 casements. The rear elevation has C20 additions but the rear left block survives with coped gables to the rear. INTERIOR: Not inspected. The school is part of an outstanding group of buildings planned by Gibbs of Tyntesfield, a Victorian philanthropist and patron of buildings, to accommodate the physical needs of the elderly (the Free Cottages), the educational needs of the young at the school and the spiritual needs of the local community in the church, which contains a white marble effigy of the founder. According to Greenaway, this was a virgin site which had been bought by John Dinham to prevent its becoming a fairground and thus save 'the morals of the young'. Dinham presented the site to the City and Gibbs built on it. (J. Greenaway, Discovering Exeter; St Davids, Exeter, 1981, p.22).

Listing NGR: SX9152692730