Downes

Downes is a country mansion built for the Gould family around 1692. It was acquired by James Buller of Morval through marriage in 1726 and has remained the Buller family home since then. The house underwent high-quality improvements around that time, was remodelled in 1794, had its service accommodation rebuilt in 1854, and saw further alterations to the main block around 1878 and again around 1910. The original brick construction was faced with Beer stone ashlar in 1794, with later work in brick. The roofs are slate with lead ridges and hips.

The exterior now presents a Palladian appearance, though the basic late 17th-century layout survives. The house was originally built as a courtyard arrangement with the main block facing south-east. The kitchen and service rooms to the rear have been demolished, leaving only a 19th-century L-shaped service accommodation block (now estate offices) behind the south-west wing. All ranges are two storeys with attic rooms in the roofspace.

The front range is flanked by single-storey pavilions set forward from the house, possibly original but more likely early 18th century. According to a late 18th-century map, these were originally detached but were connected in 1794 with concave quadrant walls. The main block follows a symmetrical plan with a central front door and central staircase, main rooms on either side, and principal bedchambers above on the first floor. In 1794 the main door was moved to the south-west side with a new porch and passage connection to the original entrance hall. Service rooms and a stair are located to the rear. The pavilion to the left of the front has a wine cellar. The right pavilion and north-east wing contain high-quality rooms furnished in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

The symmetrical south-east front has the main block recessed behind the flanking pavilions. The seven-window front features 12-pane sashes with the centre three articulated by a slight forward break and pediment above. The central double doors have a pedimented doorcase with Ionic pilasters. There is a simple plinth, modillion eaves cornice with parapet above, and a pediment containing 19th-century Buller arms. The roof is hipped on each side. From each end a quadrant wall approximately two-thirds the height of the main block breaks forward, first square with a plain forward pilaster, then concave to meet the corners of the pavilions. These have a plinth, plain cornice and parapet. Each front has three high round-headed windows containing 12-pane sashes under fixed single-pane half-round heads, with the centre bay broken slightly forward. The quadrant wall to the right includes a large triple-sash window. The roof of each block is hipped on each side, and two flat-headed dormers to the left contain three-light casements with glazing bars.

On the south-west side, the six-window front is recessed between the service block and south pavilion. The main front is of 1878 brick, but set in front of it is a single-storey asymmetrical flat-roofed ashlar-fronted range with an off-centre portico porch. To the right of this is a three-window extension meeting the pavilion as an extruded corner and closing with the service wing as an open colonnaded screen of Beer stone, the whole sharing a frieze, modillion cornice and parapet. This was probably built in 1910. The porch projects from the left side of the extension and contains a six-fielded-panel door with an overlight of decorative glazing divided by cast iron glazing bars of continuous nutshell pattern. The door is flanked by paired Ionic pilasters with an open pediment above containing a cartouche with the Buller arms. Large wrought iron footscrapers stand on either side of the porch. The extension to the right has two 12-pane sashes with an applied Ionic pilaster between and pairs at each end. Pilasters are not applied to the projecting single bay at the right end but the entablature is carried round. To the left of the porch, a two-bay screen of three Ionic columns in antis continues the line of the extension to meet the service block. The painted brick main block behind contains four-pane sashes with segmental heads; the two at the right end on the first floor are blind. The eaves are on shaped brackets. The roof is hipped to the front and gabled to the rear and includes four flat-roofed dormers: three with three-light casements with glazing bars and a fourth double-window dormer.

The four-window north-east elevation of the main block is 1794 work partly restored in 1910, in Beer stone ashlar on a moulded plinth of volcanic ashlar. The three ground floor windows to the right (18-pane sashes) project in the form of a segmental bay.

The interior contains features from all periods, but most notable are those from around 1692 and around 1726. The front entrance hall was adapted in the late 19th or early 20th century and has bolection-moulded oak panelling with a box cornice. From the same date is a two-arched screen with a door to the left leading to the 1794 entrance hall, apparently placed across the foot of a grand early 18th-century stair. The screen is made up of early 18th-century joinery including panelled pilasters with carved acanthus brackets under forward breaks in the cornice. The arches have carved female heads at each apex. There are dog-gates at the bottom of the stairs, their tops swept down to the middle with slender moulded bars forming a grille in the centre panel of each.

The stair rises in three flights around a large open well with a moulded flat handrail, ornate twisted balusters, an open string with elaborately carved acanthus brackets, and a plastered soffit with ribbed rectangular panels. The stair is lit by a large round-headed sash window whose large panes contain geometric leaded glass in the centre surrounded by leaded fragments of 17th- and 18th-century French stained glass. Above is a fine ornamental plasterwork ceiling comprising a central double-rib roundel enriched with high-relief plants, fruits and flowers, surrounded by panels containing wreaths, garlands and grotesque scrolls. A coved cornice includes armorial bearings in cartouches and floral swags. The arms of James Buller I and his first wife Elizabeth Gould date the plasterwork and probably the stairs to the early 18th century. The screen, stair and plasterwork are paralleled at Bellair, Topsham Road, Exeter.

The front entrance hall was enlarged in the 19th century by removal of a partition to the right room, which otherwise preserves a bolection-moulded chimneypiece and panelling. The room to the left of the hall has early 17th-century small-field oak panelling and a contemporary ornate carved oak chimneypiece inscribed MD TD (Margaret and Thomas Dunscombe) and the date 1604. It is supposed to have been brought from Higher Dunscombe. The moulded plaster ceiling comprises a central roundel with panels around defined by bolection-moulded ribs, and the chamber above has a similar ceiling. The right front chamber is lined with bolection panelling with an original painted panel in the overmantel depicting an Old Testament scene of royal feasting and dancing.

The north-east wing has 18th-century white marble rococo chimneypieces with shells and festoons in the ground floor boudoir and the chamber above. The first floor sash windows overlooking the courtyard have lower panels of late 19th-century thick translucent leaded glass in geometric patterns. Most of the rest was refurbished in the 19th century, and the ground floor ballroom and right pavilion have Tudor-style ceilings of that date, the latter with a contemporary carved Yorkstone fireplace and chimneypiece. Fittings in the service (south-west) wing include 19th-century service bells, each with an individual tone and ceramic labels.