Bowden House

Bowden House is a manor house dating to circa 1509, originally built for John Gyles and significantly remodelled between 1700 and 1704 for Nicholas Trist. It is a two-storey building. The south-east facade presents a symmetrical design with a central entrance, arranged in five bays with a window arrangement of 2:1:1:1:2. The south-west facade mirrors this symmetry, also with five bays and a window arrangement of 2:2:1:2:2. The roof is hipped and covered in Welsh slate, with rendered stacks. The exterior is constructed of Devonian limestone ashlar, featuring pilasters that support an entablature and parapet, and a plain band at first floor level. The windows are architraved sashes with glazing bars. The main entrance has an architraved doorway topped by a console bracketed entablature with a pulvinated frieze, leading to a half-glazed door. A similar doorway with a pediment leads to an early 19th-century glazed porch. A rear range dates to the 16th century, containing original doorways that formerly gave access to a passage. The original main entrance, now an internal doorway, is made of granite with an arched head, a moulded square surround with carved spandrels, and a hoodmould; a similar doorway was reused in a 19th-century stable range. A three-light mullioned window with cavetto mouldings and a hoodmould is visible over a former rear entrance. An early 19th-century stable block adjoins the 16th-century range, featuring an arcaded stable yard and a honey-comb brick treatment to the first-floor hay lofts, possibly for ventilation. The outbuildings incorporate a doorway and other carved fragments from the 16th-century house. The interior retains a former Tudor hall, later used as the kitchen, which has a moulded plaster ceiling decorated with rib work and part of a figured frieze. Open fireplaces are present, one with an early 18th-century mantle. An 18th-century front room features earlier 17th-century panelling brought from elsewhere within the old house, and a fine carved chimneypiece with an elaborate coat of arms and crowned supporters, inscribed below Holophernies and Judith with the date 1585. Elaborate 18th-century plasterwork adorns the entrance hall, including the doorcase, niches, and chimney-piece, and depicts a naturalistic classical ceiling with a medallion of Charles I dated 1735. Above the entrance hall is a large panelled room, and a fine mid-18th-century open staircase with an open string, closely spaced turned balusters, column newels and a swept moulded handrail.