Greenway House

SX 85 SE, 9/36

KINGSWEAR, GREENWAY ROAD, Greenway House

II*

Country house in landscaped gardens overlooking River Dart. Built 1780-90, remodelled and extended in early C19. Stuccoed stone rubble. Slate hipped roof. Parapet and dentilled cornice. Three storeys. Five bays. Sash windows, with vertical glazing bars only, in moulded architraves with cornices to first and ground storeys. Central plain round-headed doorway with semicircular fanlight and glazed double doors, and early C19 porch with Tuscan columns. Early C19 single storey one bay wings left and right with tripartite sashes complete with glazing bars and loggias each with two pairs of Tuscan columns supporting entablature. The left-hand (west) wing has wide segmental bow on west side. Stuccoed chimney stacks over side walls with moulded cornices. Service wing at rear. Interior: Stairwell has moulded plaster rib vault with bosses displaying arm of Elton impaling Marwood and plaster modillion cornice. Plain stairs with stick balusters and wreathed handrail to column newel. Two good late C18 marble chimneypieces and C18/19 iron grates, moulded plaster cornices, friezes and centrepieces. Original mahogany doors. In the dining room (to east) two curved doors. Other late C18 and early C19 joinery intact. Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Compton Castle q.v.) is reputed to have been born at Greenwood about 1539 although there are no remains of a C16 house. He founded the first British colony in North America in Newfoundland in 1583. Reference: W G Hodens 'A New Survey of England, Devon', pages 206 and 369.

Listing NGR: SX8720954755