Oldstone,Ruins of House is a Grade II listed building in the South Hams local planning authority area, England. First listed on 7 October 1976. A Georgian Ruins.

Oldstone,Ruins of House

WRENN ID
sharp-grate-ridge
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
South Hams
Constituency
South Devon MP: Caroline Voaden (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
7 October 1976
Type
Ruins
Period
Georgian
Address
Oldstone,Ruins of House, Blackawton
OS grid reference
SX 816 517
Coordinates
50.35401, -3.66434
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The ruins of Oldstone, a country house located in a landscaped park, date back to the 18th century, with possible earlier remains. The house was remodeled in the 19th century and later suffered a fire, leaving it as a roofless ruin. The structure is built of dressed slate rubble. Historical photographs in the National Building Record show that the house originally featured a 7-bay facade on the southeast front, with two main rooms: a drawing room on the right and a dining room on the left, along with a central entrance.

The 19th-century remodeling included reorienting the house and creating a large stair hall at the back, which has an entrance porch on the left side in Gothic style. The remaining structure is roughly L-shaped, with the service areas now destroyed. The front range, which was originally topped with a hipped roof and had a modillion eaves cornice, displays a symmetrical three-storey, seven-bay facade. However, the top storey and the heads of the first-floor windows have collapsed.

There is a string course at the first-floor level and a fine limestone Doric portico featuring engaged columns, triglyphs in the frieze, and a triangular pediment. The left return of the building has a two-storey gabled projection with a large three-light Gothic-style window that lights the stair hall, showcasing Perpendicular tracery, and a porch below with a chamfered four-centred arch. To the left, there is a gable with a projecting stack that terminates in a square cap and short round pillars. Additionally, a drawing from the National Building Record depicts the drawing room's late 18th-century interior, which includes a Neo-classical moulded plaster ceiling and chimneypiece. Oldstone is believed to have been an estate since the 11th century and was the seat of the Cholwiches, who rebuilt the house in the 18th century.

Local climate

Oldstone,Ruins of House receives an average of 890 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 66% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 90% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 6 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 96% of listed buildings. Of these, 3 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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