Trobridge House Including Adjoining Cottage And Two Rear Cob Walls To West And North

Trobridge House with adjoining cottage and two rear cob walls to west and north

This is a country house with adjoining cottage and cob walls to the rear, located near Crediton. The building has late 16th- to early 17th-century origins, but was substantially rebuilt for the Trobridge family around 1700. It was refurbished in the early and late 18th century and again in the late 19th century.

The main parts and front are constructed in brick on squared volcanic stone footings, with some sections in volcanic rubble. The brick and volcanic stone chimney stacks are topped with 19th-century brick. The roofs are slate.

The original plan was a double-depth arrangement with a central cross passage and stairs positioned to the right. The front was extended to the right in the late 19th century. End fireplaces serve the original front rooms, with a kitchen stack to the left rear and a service stair in the kitchen. The roof structure uses parallel roofs with a connecting cross-roof to the left. A service building was added to the left rear in the 18th century, and another service block at right angles to the right rear corner now functions as a cottage. The front elevation is 2 storeys with attics; the rear is 3 storeys with attics.

The front is predominantly a 7-window brick elevation. A flat-roofed 2-window section was added to the right in the late 19th century. The original 5-window front was symmetrical with a central door. The current 6-panel door has panelled reveals, a round-headed fanlight with radial glazing bars and a timber doorcase with pilasters and segmental pediment (the fanlight and pediment were rebuilt around 1960 after a 19th-century porch collapsed). The window above has a segmental head and Gibbs surround, containing a late 18th-century sash with a pointed pattern of broad glazing bars. The other windows have segmental heads and plastered lintels with projecting fluted keystones, and contain early 12-pane sashes with broad glazing bars (chamfered externally, with ovolo-moulded internal detail). A moulded Beer stone plinth runs along the front. A wooden eaves cornice dating to around 1960 replaces the original plaster version, and the brick parapet has been rebuilt with Beer stone coping. The roof is half-hipped on each side over the original house. The right end includes an early 19th-century arched attic window with 2 pointed lights.

The north side has a 2-window front with 12-pane sashes serving a 19th-century extension on the left (fronting elevation), with the recessed central section being the circa 1700 half-gabled brick end of the main rear block containing a blocked segmental arch, a high mid-19th-century sash with glazing bars and margin panes to the stairs, and a plat band at eaves level. To the right is the long rear wall of the 2-storey cottage, with its roof hipped at each end. The cottage was built in mid-to-late 19th-century brick, though its left end retains rubble masonry from an earlier small single-storey block with a stack. The cottage faces south onto the rear courtyard with a 2-window front of 20th-century wooden casements with glazing bars and a central door.

The mainly brick rear elevation of the main house has an irregular 2-window front of 19th- and 20th-century wooden casements and shows evidence of various alterations. A central door has a small side light with a pointed pattern of leaded glass panes. First-floor windows have brick relieving arches over them.

The south side has an 18th-century brick extension to the left (rear) with a monopitch roof following the line of the main roof and a 2-window front of 19th- and 20th-century wooden casements under segmental heads. To the right is the rubble end wall of the main house, which includes a massive projecting stack of volcanic ashlar, probably dating to the late 16th or early 17th century.

The interior is of high quality. The entrance hall contains circa 1700 wainscotting and plaster cornice. The room to the left is lined with reused early 17th-century oak panelling above dado level, with a 19th-century chimney piece flanked by early 18th-century fluted Doric pilasters with triglyph entablature and dentil cornice. The ceiling features a large enriched doubled-rib oval surrounded by ribbed panels. A similar plain-rib ceiling appears in the room to the right of the passage, with a richly moulded modillion cornice and another 19th-century chimney piece.

An elegant panelled round arch of circa 1700 opens to an early-to-mid-18th-century open-well stair with an open string, shaped tread-end brackets, turned newel posts and close-set balusters, a moulded flat handrail and fielded panel wainscotting interrupted by fluted pilasters. An elaborate plaster cornice with egg-and-dart enrichment decorates the stairwell. Another panelled round-headed arch of circa 1700 opens to the first-floor corridor.

The corridor and main front chambers contain contemporary plaster cornices and wainscotting made up from reused early 17th-century oak panelling. The rear block retains several early 17th-century features, including rebated-ovolo moulded oak door frames with semi-urn stops, one of which contains a contemporary 8-panel door.

The roofs are supported on A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars.

A partly plastered cob wall extending northwards from the rear end of the cottage has rubble footings and a pitched slate roof. It rises to accommodate a large 4-centred arch to the stable yard, which includes a large square-sectioned granite gate post with necked obelisk caps and is flanked by rubble and brick buttresses. Another similar cob garden wall extends westward from the rear of the 18th-century service block and includes an arched doorway and a granite drinking trough in an elliptical-headed recess. Both cob walls are included for their group value.

The 18th-century changes may be associated with changes of ownership. In 1720 the property was acquired by the Strode family from Plympton, and in 1759 by the Yarde family.