Knightshayes Court

Knightshayes Court is a country house built between 1869 and 1874 for Sir John Heathcoat-Amory, grandson of John Heathcoat the Tiverton factory owner. It was designed by William Burges in the early French Gothic style. Burges created designs for internal decoration, but from 1875 these were mostly executed to the designs of J.D. Crace, who replaced him. First-class carved decoration was carried out by Thomas Nicholls. A smoking room was added in 1902 to designs by Ernest George.

The house is constructed of snecked red Hensley stone with Ham Hill dressings, a red tiled roof, embattled stone chimneystack shafts, and some cast-iron rainwater goods. It follows a west-east axis on a U-plan of double depth, with a central hall. The garden elevation to the south overlooks a formal garden with a vista down to Tiverton town and the Heathcoat factory beyond. The north side contains a hall bay and north porch, with the principal stair rising from the hall at the west end. Reception rooms run along the south side overlooking the formal garden, and a single-storey billiard room projects to the north towards the east of the main range.

The front elevation is highly Gothic in character, featuring coped gables with crocketed finals, a corbelled cornice to a battlemented stair turret, and varied window forms including lancets and plate tracery. The composition is irregular, with a 2:1:4:3 window pattern plus a single-storey smoking room at the right end and a single-storey billiard room at right angles to the main range. Two irregular gables project at the left end. A square hall bay projects to the right of the porch, with an embattled stair tower and pyramidal roof at the right end of the main block. The gabled porch contains a three-centred arched doorway. The hall to the right has a parapet, buttresses, and plate-traceried transomed stone windows. The stair tower features a moulded string, three lancet windows (with three more on the right return), and a corbelled embattled parapet. A gable to the left of the porch incorporates a bellcote with a large carved hound on the ridge above. Deep projecting gargoyles feature throughout. The billiard room has one- and two-light trefoil-headed transomed windows and a cornice of paired billiard balls below the parapet, which carries high-quality grotesque carvings. The rib-vaulted porch contains a two-leaf half-glazed outer door with decorated iron grilles and a glazed tympanum with grille. The inner doorway arch is carved, and an extraordinary lamp holder in the form of the upper half of a man sits carved over the apex. A retaining wall to the courtyard is coped with square piers with tiered caps at intervals.

The left return has three shouldered lateral chimneystack shafts with scattered fenestration matching the front elevation. A lower-roofed service wing adjoins at right angles. The right return has a first-floor corbelled lateral chimneystack with matching windows. The single-storey smoking room was added by George & Yates in 1901. A single-storey projecting bay to the drawing room now leads to the conservatory.

The garden elevation is more regular than the north side but not quite symmetrical, with a 1:5:1 window pattern plus the service wing to the right and conservatory to the left. End wings break forward and gable to the front. A moulded string course runs at first-floor level, and a deeply projecting cornice with elaborate gargoyles leads to a roll-moulded parapet at second-floor level. Iron-framed windows feature either glazed or blind plate quatrefoil tracery above. The wings have three-storey canted bays with plate-quatrefoil tracery to the ground floors. At ground-floor level the main range has mullion windows with double transoms. The entrance has a round-headed arch with drip moulding and carved terminals of chained dogs. Stained glass and tracery overlight to the two-leaf door, each leaf containing six panels with the top four glazed with geometric stained glass. The central windows at first and second-floor levels are enclosed by an ornamental surround with carved columns, an angel figure in the gable, and three shields above the door. A corbelled corner oriel window sits between the left wing and main range. The remainder of first-floor windows are two- and three-light transomed mullion windows. Gabled half dormers at second-floor level have windows set in recessed arches with diapered tympana. Two-light transomed mullion windows continue across, except at the extreme left which is three lights. Massive stone gargoyles and fleurons feature throughout.

The interior contains remarkable spaces of high Victorian quality. The great hall is the most spectacular room, featuring a four-bay arch-braced roof springing from first-quality carved corbels. The hall was decorated by Crace but was redecorated in 1914 when the timber hooded chimney-piece was reduced and the screens passage probably removed. Plans exist to restore the Crace decoration based on surviving evidence. The stair cell is divided from the hall by an arcaded gallery with Ashburton marble columns carrying French waterleaf capitals. The grand stair has elaborate treatment to its underside, with a balustrade of diagonally-set balusters above a pierced frieze and newel posts decorated with blind arcading. Burges' work elsewhere in the house is characteristically flamboyant, including texts and remarkably lively carvings. The extraordinary 'jellymould domelets' decorate the drawing room ceiling. The service wing, occupied by the family, was not inspected. Original drawings by Burges for elaborate internal decoration are in the possession of the National Trust, as is a good photographic record of the house.

Pevsner described the house as "an eloquent expression of High Victorian ideals in a country house of moderate size". The house has been in the care of the National Trust since 1973.