Heathcoat Hall

Heathcoat Hall is a workingmen's social club built between 1874 and 1876 by John Hayward of Exeter. It is constructed of grey local stone ashlar with dressings of Ham stone, and has a slate roof. An original chimney of the same stone as the front wall is located at the right-hand end of the middle range, with a designed entablature at its top. A later red brick chimney, dating from around 1900, is at the left-hand end.

The building has a symmetrical classical design, consisting of a single-storey centre range with two-storey wings. The centre range has five bays, flanked by projecting gabled wings each two windows wide. The centre range features five large round-arched windows on a broad sill band, with moulded archivolts, keystones, and continued moulded imposts. The middle window is truncated to accommodate a doorway with a projecting stone surround, incorporating a moulded architrave, plain frieze, and moulded cornice on brackets. It contains double doors with two panels. The outer windows of the centre range have four-paned sashes with margin lights, some of which are very narrow. A similar window arrangement is found above the doorway. The windows in the wings are flat-headed with moulded architraves and keystones; continued sills extend to the second storey, linking with the imposts in the centre range. Round-arched doorways with moulded architraves and keystones are located on the inner face of each wing, now fitted with 20th-century flush wooden doors. The centre range has a moulded eaves cornice that extends around the sides of the wings, which also have moulded bargeboards resting on the ends of the eaves cornice creating open triangular pediments.

The interior of the building has not been inspected.

Historical records from the Devon Record Office include John Hayward’s 1874 bill for advice and drawings relating to the building, paid in December 1876, and a record of a billiard table purchase in the same month. White’s Directory of Devon (1878) describes the hall as “Heathcoat Hall” and “Working Men’s Institution,” built in 1876 by Sir John H Amory-Heathcoat at a cost of £1,000. It originally contained a large hall seating 600 people, used for lectures and concerts, plus reading, billiard, and smoke rooms, and a circulating library of over 400 volumes. F.J. Snell’s Chronicles of Twyford (1892) refers to it as the Heathcoat Memorial Hall, opened on 23rd May 1876, built for the benefit of factory employees, replacing a previous institute located in Quick’s Court.