Dowrich House Including Adjoining Cob Garden Wall To Rubble Garden Wall To North East

Dowrich House is a manor house, now farmhouse, located in Sandford. The building dates from probably the mid-16th century with some 17th-century work, followed by extensive refurbishment and partial rebuilding in the early 19th century, refronting circa 1870–80, and further alteration to the front in the early 20th century.

The house is constructed of plastered volcanic rubble with an exposed stone front and Ham stone dressings. It has volcanic stone stacks, most with 19th-century chimney shafts, and a slate roof. The original plan comprised a 3-room-and-through-passage house facing south-east with a parlour cross-wing projecting forward at the left (south-west) end. The service end was rebuilt in the early 19th century with a new wing projecting forward that includes a porch to the front passage door. There is a large lateral stack projecting to the rear of the hall, a lateral parlour stack, and a stack between the kitchen and the right (north-eastern) front wing.

The house is two storeys high with an irregular front. It features large Jacobean-style, Ham stone windows with ovolo-moulded mullions and upper transoms, volcanic hoodmoulds, and large-pane sashes. The left wing has one such window, the hall has two, and the right wing has two, which also includes a Ham stone arch to the porch. The gable ends of the wings have kneelers, coping and ball finials, and two similar false gables with small vases over the hall. The left (south-west) side of the parlour wing displays a late 19th-century projecting parapet with moulded coping resting on a series of shaped Ham stone corbels with segmental arches between. The plastered right (north-east) side of the wing has an early 19th-century arched sash window with Gothick glazing bars. The projecting main block with rounded corner includes arched windows, though these are 2-light casements with arched heads on the first floor. A small 19th-century square bell cote sits on the apex of the kitchen roof, topped with an ogee lead roof and shaped vallances.

The rear (north-west) elevation includes a large early 19th-century arch-headed window to the kitchen with slender Gothick tracery and a geometric pattern of leaded glass. Smaller examples appear on the first floor. Those to the left have iron casements with Gothick-patterned leaded glass, while those to the right have scalloped treatment to the arches and include wooden casements with arch-headed lights. At the right end stands a mid-16th-century oak 5-light window with flat arched heads, moulded mullions, stancheons and saddle bars, and 19th-century leaded glass in geometric patterns. The hall stack features a massive mid-16th-century divided chimney shaft of volcanic ashlar with a moulded cap, suggesting the hall was floored from the beginning.

The interior shows mainly 19th-century fittings, including an elaborate wooden chimney piece in the hall carved in Jacobean style with free-standing Corinthian columns enriched with vines and grotesques on carved pedestals. The wooden cornice around the hall includes heraldic achievements of the Dowrich family and its connections. A 16th-century volcanic ashlar fireplace with a hollow-chamfered surround is present in the parlour. The parlour roof comprises 4 bays on 16th-century side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with butt purlins and windbraces. The hall roof features 4 17th-century A-frame trusses with dovetail lap-jointed collars. The service and front wing have 19th-century king post trusses. The volcanic ashlar arched doorways with moulded surrounds at either end of the through passage may be mid-16th-century but appear earlier and may have been introduced in the early 19th century. The 16th- and 17th-century features are probably hidden beneath later work.

The high garden walls adjoining either side, constructed of cob on rubble footings with pantile and brick tops to the left (south-west) and rubble to the right (north-east), are included for group value.

An early photograph shows a stucco front with parapets and arched windows with Gothick glazing bars and ogee heads to the ground floor. A late 19th-century photograph shows a naked stone front with the present mullion-and-upper-transom windows but shaped bargeboards to the gables. Dowrich House was the house of the Dowrich family from 1200 to 1717 according to the Devon Sites and Monuments Register.