Saunton Court Including Garden Structures To East Incorporating Gateway, Garden Walls And Gatepiers, Gazebo, Grotto And Flight Of Steps

Saunton Court is a manor house with origins in the 15th century, possibly earlier, that was remodelled and extended by the architect Lutyens in 1932. The house is constructed of rubble stone brought to courses with stone dressings to the openings. It has slate roofs with gable ends, hipped to the rear range with deep eaves. Ornamental guttering with acorn finials decorates the brackets. Stone lateral hall stacks with moulded caps to the rear are now enclosed by the 1932 additions, with further stacks positioned to the left and right sides of the cross-wings respectively, and a rear gable end of the right-hand cross-wing with tapering caps and slated weatherings.

The house was originally an open-hall structure with a two-storey porch to a through passage and cross-wings at each end, plus an additional short right-angled projection from the right-hand cross-wing. A floor was inserted at a later stage, but Lutyens removed this floor and remodelled the fenestration. He added a kitchen block and a single-storey range to the rear parallel to the main range, forming an open courtyard to the rear.

The current plan comprises a single-storey hall with two-storeyed cross-wings and a porch. The hall features a three-window range of 20th-century hornless wood sashes with cambered heads, six over six panes. A gabled porch at the lower end of the hall contains a horned sash six over six panes above a round-arched porch with an inner arch supported on engaged columns with roll-moulded post blocks and bases. The cambered-arched inner doorway has a rusticated surround and a sculptured head keystone over a double-leaved door of six panels, the upper panels glazed. Each cross-wing has two sashes on each floor, six over six panes, square-headed to the upper storey with horns and relieving arches to the left-hand cross-wing, and cambered heads without horns to the ground floor. The right side of the cross-wing has a sash six over six panes over a twelve-paned window, and a similar sash over a double horizontal sliding sash window on the east face of the right-angled projection. The rear range added by Lutyens has a three-window range on the courtyard side flanking a glazed door. The left side of the left-hand cross-wing has horizontal sliding sashes double to the left and single to the right above a doorway with a dressed stone relieving arch, and two single horizontal sliding sashes to the right of double horizontal sliding sashes. A projecting portion of the kitchen block with a steeply pitched roof contains triple horizontal sliding sashes of six panes per sash to the front and rear on each floor, that to the ground floor front with a dressed stone relieving arch.

The interior was largely remodelled by Lutyens apart from a 17th-century stone bolection-moulded fireplace to the rear end of the right-side cross-wing. Much of the early roof structure remains intact. Over the hall, half the timbers comprising the whole rear side have been replaced with the shallower pitch required for Lutyens's galleried additions. The lower cross-wing roof structure has also been replaced. However, three heavy principals and one whole truss at the junction of the upper cross-wing remain over the hall. The original truss had yokes, diagonally set threaded ridge purlins, two tiers of threaded purlins and archbraced collars. The collars are now removed, but a substantial number of rafters, most of the purlins, and two yokes survive, all heavily smoke-blackened, as are the original trusses. The cross-wing at the upper end has an almost complete medieval roof structure with three trusses, two with short yokes and the third with a saddle, three tiers of purlins, the middle tier square-set with soffit mortices for chamfered windbraces, all intact on the south side and two surviving to the north side. Chamfered arch-bracing to cranked collars morticed into the soffits of principals is also present. The short right-angled projection from the upper cross-wing contains a single pair of raised crucks with a diagonally threaded ridge purlin and small yoke, a small slightly cambered collar, and one tier of threaded purlins.

Lutyens's remodelling involved repanelling of the principal rooms, including the master bedroom to the rear of the lower cross-wing. The ground floor room of the upper cross-wing to the rear has alcoves flanking panelled doors with swags above, and a more elaborate frieze and eared architrave to an opposing frame in the front room, which also features an Adam fireplace with fluted pilasters with ram's-head capitals, carved cherubs in the central cartouche, and flanking festoons. The hall has walnut-panelled doors at each end and a large painted ceiling medallion depicting "The Judgement of Paris", possibly by Cipriani, dated 1740. Engaged classical-style pilasters with bells in the capitals are present, four to each side and two to each end. A bolection marbled chimneypiece stands against the rear wall. The panelled through-passage has an alcove on the left wall with a goat's head to the head of the niche in a garlanded surround. A panelled room to the left of the through-passage has a terracotta mantel with a trophied cluster of rural implements flanking a centre pastoral cartouche, brought from France by Robert Adam. A fine wooden open-well staircase to the rear of the cross-passage features turned balusters and a wreathed handrail ramped up to square fluted newels. Fireplaces to the principal bedrooms at the front of each cross-wing include one at the lower end with a bolection-moulded surround and a ducks'-nest style grate in cast iron with a radiating ribbed surround.

The landscaped garden to the east contains structures also by Lutyens. A stone wall encloses the garden on three sides to the east front of the house, incorporating outbuildings and a gateway porch with slated roofs to the south side. The wooden gate is ledged to form three panels with short turned bars interlocking to the middle panel. A clock tower or gazebo stands at the south-east corner, constructed of ashlar blocks with a pyramidal slate roof. It is two-storeyed, built into the bank, with a round archway over wrought-iron gates on the south face and convex steps leading to a cambered-arched doorway to the upper storey on the west side. A two-light window of eight panes per light with keystone and voussoirs to a cambered arch stands over the round archway with a keystone on the east side. A reused rainwater head to the left is dated 1674. Central gatepiers to the front garden wall have pyramidal caps and ball finials, with wooden gates featuring turned bars. A grotto in the front garden has a deep niche and a goat's-head gargoyle with a plaque above. Steps in the higher garden wall to the north side are half convex to the lower flight, with the upper flight half concave.