Tiverton Castle

TIVERTON

SS9512 PARK HILL, Tiverton 848-1/6/158 (West side) 12/02/52 Tiverton Castle (Formerly Listed as: CASTLE WARD Castle)

GV I

Castle, the seat of the Courtenay family (Earls of Devon), from the late C13 until 1539 (Pevsner). C14 core with evidence for major phases of rebuilding in the seventeenth century, after the Civil War, by Peter West, a Tiverton merchant, and in the late C17. Extensions and alterations of the C19. MATERIALS: local purple volcanic stone, some rubble, some coursed, the earlier fabric with volcanic and Beerstone dressings. The C19 work has Ham Hill dressings. Slate and lead roofs; stacks with brick and rendered shafts. PLAN: the castle is sited high above the river, just south of the parish church (qv). The plan is a courtyard arrangement, with the gatehouse in the east range, flanked by guardrooms with accommodation over. The north range is largely ruinous, but with sections of medieval walling surviving to the former roof level. The west side consists of the remains of retaining walls including the bases of two towers. There is a ruinous solar tower at the south-west corner of the site and a round tower at the south-east corner. The complex contains a late C17 house, extended probably in the late C19, sited in the north-east corner of the courtyard. A second house, Castle Barton (qv), is sited outside the walls and listed separately, as is a lodge, Castle Lodge (qv). The visible fourteenth century fabric is the two inner (west) bays of the gatehouse, which was extended to the east by one bay in the C15 and has been reduced from three storeys to two since 1734, judging from an engraving by Buck. The ruinous south wall of the south range is also C14, variously interpreted as a domestic range or a chapel over services, and the solar tower at the south-west corner. The site of the C14 hall is unclear. A gabled projection off the east range is dated 1588 with the initials RG for Robert Gifford, but there is little visible sixteenth-century fabric. The east range appears to have been partly remodelled in the C17, including a late C17 stair and ovolo-moulded mullioned windows. Somewhat later in the C17, the house in the north-east corner was added or rebuilt.

Listing NGR: SS9545412931