Holwell Temple Built As Eyecatcher Circa 2000 Metres South Of Castle Hill, Filleigh

CHITTLEHAMPTON SS 62 NE

2/123 Holwell Temple built as eyecatcher - circa 2000 metres south of Castle Hill, Filleigh - II Temple. 1770-1772. Stucco on brick and stone rubble with ashlar dressings, the brick confined to the ground floor, stack, full-height engaged pilasters and columns of the portico. Plan. Square on plan with tetrastyle portico to north side. Floors and roof no longer survive. Originally 2 principal storeys. 3 bays to each face. The principal north facade is pedimented with 3 semi-circular headed niches over round- arched window openings flanking straight-headed doorway. 3 of the 4 columns have ashlar bases with the stubs of the brick columns only surviving, the second column from the right rising to about 5 metres. Each of the bays to the remaining sides are flanked by engaged brick pilasters with Ionic style capitals, the latter surviving only to the west and south sides. Square openings over larger window openings to each bay, on the west side 2 of the upper storey windows, and on south side the central upper storey window have been blocked. On the east side, only the left-hand bay has similar openings, the central bay is blind due to the internal brick stack, the right-hand bay has a blocked ground floor window. No interior features survive except for the ground floor fireplace on the east side with cambered brick arch. Holwell Temple was built between 1770 and 17772, a former inscription around the frieze recording that it was 'Erected By Matthew Lord Fortescue in Grateful Remembrance of his Brother Hugh Earl Clinton MDCCLXX11.' Intended originally to cost £100, the eventual expenditure proved to be £700. Lord Fortescue wrote in August 1771 'I think the expense should in some measure be made to correspond with the great obligation I owe to my brother's memory - not only to this temple but by hiding as much as I could of that false French taste which was shown when he began the improvements and, which in those days very generally prevailed'. The Temple stands imposingly on the extremity of a bluff; originally the meadows below it were flooded and the trees around it shredded "to favour the deception of a port". It forms one of a number of important garden structures in the C18 design of Castle Hill, Filleigh (q.v.). Kenneth Woodbridge 'Landscaping at Castle Hill', Count Life 14th Jan 1979 and Robin Faussett 'The Creation of the Gardens at Castle Hill, Filleigh, South Molton, Devon' (1984).

Listing NGR: SS6749626954