Wembury House

SX 54 NW WEMBURY 8/194 23/4/52 Wembury House

GV II*

Country house in landscaped garden, built on the site of a late C16 house. 1803. Stone rubble formerly rendered and with ashlar dressings and ashlar basement. Parapet with plain stone coping and string courses. Rusticated stone quoins. Slate hipped roof. Two storeys, attic and basement. Five bays. Large sash windows with glazing bars, in moulded stone architraves. Central doorway with large rectangular fanlight. fielded panel double doors and porch with slender Tuscan columns and entablature with cast iron balcony. Deep basement area in front with plain iron railings. One bay set back to left hand (north). East garden front also five bays, and with niches either side of central ground floor window. Interior: Relatively plain interior is virtually unaltered and retains its original joinery, plasterwork, chimneypieces and staircase etc. The house was built for Thomas Lockyer in 1803-6 on the site of a great mansion of Sir John Hele which was demolished to build a late C17 or early C18 house which in turn has been replaced by the present house. Sir John Hele bought the estate in 1592 and built what was reputedly an enormous house of which only the wall to the west q.v. survives. There is a drawing (by Edmund Prideaux) of Wembury House, dated 1716, depicting a late C17/early C18 house. It was then the seat of John Pollexfen. The drawing is now at Prideaux Place, Cornwall.

Listing NGR: SX5312049207