Nutcombe Manor

Nutcombe Manor is a manor house dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, with late 17th and early 18th-century refurbishment and modifications carried out in the 1950s. The building is constructed of dressed stone brought to course with Ham Hill dressings. The main range has a 1986 slate roof, gabled at the ends; the rear left wing has a slate roof, half-hipped at the left end; and there is a tiled roof to the left end lean-to. A rendered rear lateral stack serves the main range, while the right end has a stack with a brick shaft, and a corner stack serves the rear left wing.

The plan is incomplete. The present arrangement comprises a single-depth main range, two rooms wide, with a rear centre stair wing, a rear left wing with a roof parallel to the main range, a rear right former dairy beneath a lean-to roof, and a single-storey lean-to at the left end of the main range. There are two fine principal rooms to the front and a fine first-floor chamber to the front left, with the present entrance into the left end lean-to. An early 18th-century painting in the owner's possession shows that the building formerly extended further to the left under a lower roofline, presumably the service wing, and depicts a two-storey porch on the front.

The exterior is two storeys. A handsome three-bay front features Ham Hill ovolo-moulded mullioned four-light windows with rounded relieving arches. The ground floor windows are transomed with hoodmoulds and label stops, all glazed with square leaded panes. There is a straight joint between the main block and the left end lean-to. A late 16th or early 17th-century plank and stud front door with strap hinges opens into the lean-to through a later doorframe. The rear elevation has a two-light timber-moulded mullioned first-floor window to the left of the stair wing, which itself has a first-floor three-light mullioned window; a two-light window of circa early 18th-century date with square leaded panes lighting the landing below; and a two-light timber-mullioned window to the ground floor. The right return of the main block has three probably late 19th-century casement windows with brick arches.

The interior contains splendid plasterwork and other high-quality features. The left-hand front room on the ground floor, the 17th-century hall, has a fine early 17th-century plaster-moulded rib ceiling with floral sprays, a central pendant, and a good ornamental frieze. The open fireplace has a chamfered lintel and a plaster overmantel in two sections with heraldic shields within cartouches flanked by rustic figures. The inner faces of the jambs and the hearth seats are painted in imitation of stone in black and white. Early 18th-century features include a pretty round-headed cupboard door with a keyblock and fielded panels, and a fine shell hood above the door into the hall from the stair wing, on the stair wing side. The right-hand room has a probably 18th-century decorated plaster ceiling rose and an 18th-century chimneypiece. A good circa late 17th-century dog-leg stair with barley-sugar balusters and a heavy handrail is present; the balusters become stick for the upper flights.

Above the hall, a high-quality first-floor chamber has a circa late 17th-century decorated plaster ceiling, slightly damaged in the late 20th century, with a frieze and plastered-over crossbeams. The bolection-moulded chimneypiece is late 17th or early 18th-century with an integral painting showing a deer, hounds and a man, reputed but probably too early to illustrate the poaching incident at Nutcombe which prompted Bampfylde Moore Carew to leave home and become the 'King of the Gypsies'. The left end wall of this room has circa early 18th-century panelling including doors from floor to ceiling, panelling said to have been introduced from elsewhere in the 1950s.

The rear left room on the ground floor has introduced 17th-century panelling and a Jacobean-style chimneypiece to the corner stack. Two chamfered step-stopped beams date from the late 16th or early 17th century. The roofspace was not inspected but may be of interest; the main trusses at the left end are said to be smoke-blackened, possibly the result of a fire that destroyed the west wing.

Nutcombe is an important late 16th or early 17th-century house with an outstanding survival of high-quality interior features.