Remains Of Bishops Palace At Palace Farmhouse

CHUDLEIGH ROCK ROAD, Chudleigh SX 87 NE 4/78 Remains of Bishops Palace at Palace Farm 23.8.55

GV II*

Remains of Bishop's Palace. Medieval. Local grey limestone rubble, partly roofed over with corrugated iron on trusses with a 1950's date. The scheduled site suggests extensive remains below ground. The most substantial remains above ground consist of a partly 2-storey block incorporating walling which continues as the west boundary wall of the garden in front of Palace Farm. The plan of this block includes, at ground floor level, 2 vaults, 1 with a rounded and 1 with a pointed arch. At the north end these vaults are completed by a section of wall (probably at one time external) with a well-finished plinth that rises at the west end. The wall has a blocked, deeply-splayed arched window and the remnants of a stone newel stair. To the north of this wall and parallel to it, a second section of wall extends as re garden boundary wall, and contains several deeply splayed slit windows, mostly blocked. The relationship between the surviving remains above ground and what may be below ground remains conjectural. The Bishop of Exeter had selected a site in Chudleigh for a rural palace as early as 1080 and the "See's ownership is confirmed some hundred years later in an undated charter of Bishop Bartholomew (1165 -1184)" (Crockett). In 1550 Bishop Veysey was obliged to alienate the properties and rights pertaining to Chudleigh which were dispersed into secular ownership. The building above ground is clearly part of a site of major historical and archaeological interest.

Listing NGR: SX8657278872