Great House Of St George

This large and historically important town house is said to have been built by George Slee around 1613, with later alterations particularly following a fire in 1731. The house is believed to have incorporated guild facilities as well as functioning as Slee's residence and place of business. Later used as a doctor's surgery, it has served as council offices since 1974.

George Slee, born about 1555 and died 1613, was the son of a yeoman farmer of Coldridge and is buried in the chancel of the Church of St Peter. He was related by marriage to the other major wool merchants with Tiverton links. He married Joan Chilcot, who was the niece of Peter Blundell.

Materials and Construction

The house is built of purple slatestone rubble with freestone dressings, heavily repaired on the front elevation with some of the dressings replaced with concrete. The roof is covered with natural slate. Chimneys have rendered shafts with coved cornices and terracotta pots. The rainwater goods are of cast iron.

Plan and Layout

The main range follows a three-room and cross-passage plan on a north-south axis, fronting west onto the street, with the cross passage to the left of centre. The outer rooms are heated by end stacks. The centre room is now divided between a parlour at the front with a front corner stack and a stair hall to the rear. A rear right wing extends at right angles, heated from a lateral stack on its south wall.

The house has a rear courtyard, now a garden, and access to Fore Street at a low level around the south end of the adjoining almshouses, Slee's Almshouses on St Peter's Street. The house was evidently refurbished in the early 18th century and the stair is a 20th-century replacement.

The position of the original kitchen is unclear. The room to the north of the cross passage, technically (although not topographically) the lower end, is over a cellar, but the rear wing seems a better candidate. This has an axial passage running along the north side, linked to the stair hall and a separate doorway into the passage from the rear courtyard. The partition to the passage incorporates a Tudor arched doorway. The north wall has a shallow gabled projection, possibly a former stair or closet.

There have been considerable 20th-century alterations to the house, including re-roofing, and it is possible that some of the internal features, particularly plank and muntin partitions, are not in their original positions.

Exterior

The house is of two storeys and attic with a cellar under the north end. The front (west) elevation is symmetrical above the ground floor, apart from the left-of-centre front stack, which rises behind the parapet. A deep plinth supports coped gables to front left and right, with kneelers. A coped parapet between the gables rises in the centre with a nowy (reverse-curved) head.

A round-headed doorway to the through-passage is positioned to the left of centre, with a moulded dripmould and a two-leaf arched timber door. Moulded strings run at first-floor sill and lintel level, the upper string forming a continuous dripmould to the first-floor windows. Stone ovolo-mullioned windows with hoodmoulds and king mullions are glazed with square leaded panes. All windows are six-light except the ground floor left, which is four-light. Ground-floor windows have relieving arches. Two-light stone mullioned attic windows appear in each gable and one one-light stone window in the centre.

The north end of the rear (east) elevation is gabled to the rear. A classicised rear passage doorway has moulded piers (very repaired) with capitals and egg and dart moulding and a lion's head. To the north of the passage doorway there is a separate entrance to the ground-floor room at the north end and a doorway with steps down to the cellar, both doorways with continuous hoodmoulds and relieving arches, and the cellar doorway with a two-light stone overlight. The first-floor room is lit by a very large five-light stone mullioned window with high transoms to the outer pairs of lights and an arched central light. The stair window to the south is also stone mullioned with a high transom.

The north elevation of the wing has a small gabled projection in the centre with a coped gable with kneelers and small two- and one-light stone windows. To its right (east) there is a Tudor arched doorway containing a 19th- or 20th-century studded door with a four-light stone mullioned window alongside, sharing a continuous hoodmould. Both openings have relieving arches and a six-light mullioned window lights the first floor. To the right of the projection the wall is blind. The end wall of the wing is gabled with one ground and one first-floor stone mullioned window with relieving arches. A second small first-floor window and the attic window in the gable are probably secondary additions.

The rear elevation of the wing is partly obscured by foliage and the yard to the rear of Slee's Almshouses. It has a Beerstone band at the sill level of the ground-floor windows, an internal shouldered stack, two first-floor stone mullioned windows, a 20th-century attic dormer, and probably a 20th-century ground-floor window to the right.

The coach house at the east end of the wing has been renovated and joined to it in the last ten years. It retains the arms of the Owen family, who were wool staplers and provided two mayors of Tiverton and who occupied the house.

Interior

The interior retains important fittings from the 17th and 18th centuries, which have survived remarkably well for a town house, including attractive detail such as window furniture with vertical rods linking the opening mechanism. The following is not a comprehensive list of all the items of interest.

The through-passage has a flagged floor and is lined with plank and muntin screens, now painted, the north side screen truncated. The muntins are moulded with scroll stops and a five-petal motif, a folk magic symbol, is inscribed below several of the stops. The roof is carried on moulded crossbeams with scroll stops. The north side has a Tudor arched doorway with carved spandrels and a two-leaf door. A lead rainwater hopper has been re-sited over the doorway. It is dated 1614 with the initials I S, probably for Joan Slee, George Slee's wife. The south side of the passage has two similar Tudor arched doorways, one blocked, with plain and stud doors.

The north end room, which occupied the full depth of the range, has been modernised and is plain. The fireplace, if it exists, to the north end stack, is concealed. The first-floor room over has been subdivided and panelled in the late 19th or 20th century but was originally one early 18th-century room, judging from the ceiling. The cellar has a pitched stone floor and a round-headed volcanic archway.

The small parlour in the centre front has a Jacobean chimney-piece with carved terms and a date of 1622 and late 17th- or early 18th-century panelling. The south end room in the front range has a boxed-in crossbeam, early 18th-century panelling, and an 18th-century grey and white marble chimney-piece with an integral overmantel painting of John the Baptist.

A 20th-century open-well stair has a flat handrail and slender turned balusters. A simple plaster rose decorates the stair hall ceiling.

The rear wing retains 17th-century scroll-stopped chamfered crossbeams and the axial passage on the north side is a plank and muntin screen incorporating a Tudor arched doorway. The fireplace to the large south side stack is not visible but may be concealed behind later wall plaster. The first floor of the wing has moulded beams to the passage and some moulded beams to the rooms off.

The attic storey of the wing has small rooms, probably servants' rooms in the 18th century, with some two-panel doors and fielded panelled cupboards.

The roofspace is of 20th-century roof construction. The first-floor ceiling of the north room has been lowered and an early 18th-century plaster cornice and ceiling roundel survive in the attic.

Tall stone rubble walls to the rear garden are included in the listing.

Historical Significance

The Great House is of national importance as a good example of an early 17th-century town house in a provincial market town. It is of especial importance to Tiverton as the only surviving house in the town erected by one of the wealthy wool merchants who ran Tiverton in the 17th century and who are known from charitable buildings they founded.