Widdicombe House

Widdicombe House is a country house comprising a main structure built circa 1720–5 as a rebuilding of an earlier house, with a substantial extension added circa 1820. The building is constructed of dressed and coursed slate, partly stuccoed, beneath a slate hipped mansard roof with lead rolls to ridge and lips and a moulded wooden eaves cornice. The chimneys are axial stacks, some with rebuilt brick shafts.

The original 1720–5 house is L-shaped in plan. Its main front range contains a central entrance hall and an open-well staircase housed in a stair tower positioned at the back in the angle where the main range meets the rear left-hand wing. Behind the relatively small front rooms are axial passages; the right-hand passage contained the servants staircase, suggesting this side of the house functioned as service quarters. The room to the right of the entrance hall appears to have been the china room. The large room in the rear left-hand wing, now called the gallery, was evidently the principal room.

Around 1820 the house was substantially enlarged by adding a wing to the left (east) side, containing a drawing room at the front, a library in the middle, and a large saloon at the rear. Another stairwell was constructed behind the rear wing at this time. The two-storey outshut on the back of the right-hand end of the main range is a 19th-century addition extending service accommodation. The front porch and dairy on the front right-hand corner probably date to the early 19th century. In the early 20th century, an outbuilding at right angles to the new wing was rebuilt as a kitchen wing.

Externally, the house presents two storeys with an attic. The north front is symmetrical with seven windows, extended circa 1820 by a one-window addition on the left. A bend occurs at first-floor level. Early 19th-century 12-pane sashes fill openings with flat arches and keystones. A central doorway features a 19th-century stone porch. Five large dormers with alternating triangular and segmented pediments were being rebuilt at the time of survey in 1988–9. The left-hand bay addition has Venetian windows on both floors with early 19th-century sashes and keystones to the central round-arch lights. The left-hand (east) return comprises three, two, and three bays of stone; the right-hand return comprises three bays of stone; the remainder is stuccoed and set back slightly. Early 19th-century 12-panel sashes with glazing bars appear at the centre and left on the ground floor with round arches; the three on the left occupy arched recesses in a wide segmented bow with a balcony above featuring an intersecting cast-iron balustrade and hipped canopy. The rear elevation features a hipped-roof stair tower at centre with a round-arch window (frame renewed) and a wing to the right with an early 19th-century tripartite sash on the first floor. To the left of the stair tower stands a two-storey extension.

The interior retains very fine original joinery and plasterwork from 1720, along with high-quality work from the 1820 period. The entrance hall displays an acanthus-leaf cornice moulded ceiling, fielded dado, and a 19th-century marble chimneypiece with fluted consoles terminating in lion heads. The 1720 open-well staircase is of exceptional quality, featuring three balusters per tread (fluted and twisted), a moulded mahogany handrail ramped up to Corinthian column newels. The stairwell ceiling is finished with fine moulded plaster bearing a modillion cornice and an oval with acanthus-leaf decoration. Landing partition walls to bedchambers are lined with fielded panelling. The small room to the right of the stairwell, probably the china room, is lined with cupboards of fielded panel doors and shaped shelves, topped with a moulded cornice and quartrefoil rib moulding to the ceiling. To the left of the stairwell is a small room with fielded panelling and a 19th-century marble chimneypiece.

The drawing room at the front of the left-hand wing retains a circa 1820 plaster cornice and a Neo-classical chimneypiece. The library behind has an early 19th-century plaster cornice, a 19th-century marble chimneypiece, and bookcases. The saloon at the rear of the 1820 wing features an early 19th-century marble chimneypiece. The room in the original rear wing, called the gallery, has early 20th-century panelling, though at its back stands a fine early 19th-century open-well staircase with scrolled tread ends, stick balusters, moulded handrail, and a vaulted ceiling with cornice. On the first floor, an 18th-century back staircase at the right (west) end rises to the attic, featuring moulded string, split balusters, and moulded handrail. Panelled doors survive in the attic. The roof structure was altered to mansard form in the 19th century, though the lower sections of the principals have been retained.

Widdicombe House served as the seat of the Holdsworths, Dartmouth merchants. Tradition holds that it was once owned by Captain Cook, though the attribution of Capability Brown to the landscaping of the park is unfounded.