Ugbrooke Park

Ugbrooke Park is a country house that has been the family home of the Cliffords since the late 16th century. The present building represents a remodelling undertaken between 1763 and 1768 by Robert Adam of an earlier house, with subsequent piecemeal improvements by local builders and contractors, including work in 1858, 1863, and the 1870s. The exterior is finished in 19th-century imitation stone render with an exposed grey limestone plinth and slate roofs. The south block, which contains the chapel, is colourwashed and rendered.

A survey plan of Ugbrooke dating from about 1740, prior to Adam's remodelling, shows that Adam rebuilt the present courtyard arrangement on an existing U-shaped plan, filling in the fourth side with an entirely new range. The bulk of the pre-Adam house, however, appears to have been sited to the south-east of the present building and contained the chapel, which was consecrated in 1671. Most of this south-eastern block was demolished and remodelled by Adam with a smaller ground plan, but incorporating the chapel, which was redesigned.

Architectural Significance

Adam's design for the courtyard ranges is the earliest example in his oeuvre of the castellated style and is of major importance for this reason. The 6- and 7-bay ranges around the courtyard have 3-storey battlemented corner towers. The principal rooms are located in the south and west ranges, with the service range to the north. The east range has largely disappeared. Adam's entrance hall was positioned in the south range on the south side, with the stair hall behind it projecting into the courtyard. The south-east block, containing the chapel, library, and study, is linked to the south range of the courtyard plan and features a bow front to the west.

19th-Century Alterations

The 8th Lord Clifford made a number of alterations in the late 19th century, acting as his own architect and relying for advice on local surveyors and building contractors: Thomas Bell and William Cotton of Teignmouth, and J.S. Delbridge of Dawlish. The principal changes effected were the replacement of Adam's entrance on the south front of the south range with a corridor entrance at the east end of the south range within the courtyard, the addition of plain large mouldings to the main entrances to the courtyard, the addition of a first-floor conservatory above the south entrance to the courtyard, and adjustments to the second-floor tower windows and the battlementing.

Exterior

The symmetrical 6-bay 2-storey south elevation features a parapet flanked by 3-storey battlemented towers, square on plan. Most of the ground-floor windows are 2-pane sashes in round-headed architraves with bulbous moulding. First-floor windows are 8-pane sashes with architraves and cornices. The tower windows are similar except for the second-floor fenestration, where the windows are recessed behind paired round-headed openings with a central shaft and a diamond-shaped light above.

A 2-storey block at the right end links the south range to the south-west block, which is set forward. The linking block has a central round-headed archway to the courtyard. The west elevation of the west courtyard range, which overlooks a lake and landscape created by Capability Brown, is similar to the south range.

The south-east block is colourwashed, rendered, and battlemented with a brick cornice below the battlements. The 5-bay west elevation has a central 2-storey 3-bay bow with 12-pane sashes, the ground-floor windows set in round-headed recesses. The outer bays have 12-pane first-floor sashes and round-headed recesses to the ground floor; the right-hand recess contains the west end doorway to the chapel.

Interior

The house contains several fine rooms. The original Adam entrance hall in the south range is beautifully proportioned with a central fireplace on the north wall flanked by doorways to the stair hall behind and paired doors on the end walls leading to the adjacent rooms. The chimneypiece is Doric. The doorways to the stair hall have overdoors decorated with honeysuckle motifs; the 2-leaf panelled inner doors fold away, and the outer doors are inlaid and panelled. Similar doorways are found on the end walls. An elaborate Doric cornice, used frequently by Adam in his castle interiors, is enriched with roundels containing the Clifford Wyvern and Lichfield Lion.

The stair hall has a central glazed dome with ornamental plasterwork, a dentil moulding to the ceiling, and a fine open-well stair with stick balusters, a wreathed handrail, Vitruvian scroll decoration on the string, and an anthemion moulding below the top landing.

Two principal rooms leading off the stair hall on the south-west corner of the courtyard plan also have good chimneypieces, cornices, chair rails, carved skirting boards, and good doorcases. The details are not necessarily all by Adam. Adam's working drawings, sent to William Spring, the Clerk of Works, invariably show finer and more elaborate detailing than was carried out.

The one room wholly faithful to Adam's designs was the library in the south-east block, dating from around 1768, and completed at a date when economies made elsewhere in the new building allowed the ability finally to spend generously. The bow-fronted room has a shallow coved ceiling, a thin cornice with widely-spaced roundels, and console brackets to the overdoors and chimneypiece.

There are traces of pre-Adam detail, including doors and cornices, in the main range. The northernmost room of the west elevation was formerly a splendid library in the Egyptian style, dating from around 1820. It has been adapted as a kitchen, but the shelves survive with some brass inlay, and Egyptian figures flank the doorway.

The Chapel of St Cyprian

The private chapel of the first Lord Clifford, Lord Treasurer, was consecrated as an Anglican chapel in 1671. In 1672, at the time of the Test Act, Lord Clifford became a Roman Catholic and resigned his high office. The chapel is said to be the earliest post-Reformation Roman Catholic chapel in the south of England.

A survey plan suggests that Adam's remodelling preserved the original dimensions but added an apsidal east end with 3 niches behind the altar. In 1835 the 7th Lord Clifford added an organ loft in a tower on the south side and altered from plaster to marble Adam's cornices and other mouldings, and faced the apse with marble. The work was executed by an unknown Mr Iago, probably a local stonemason, Mr Jago, who appears in the parish records of Bishopsteignton. In 1866 the addition of a Lady chapel and baptistry by the 8th Lord Clifford completed the metamorphosis from a family chapel to a public church of Southern European richness.

The chapel has a cruciform plan, with the transepts galleried and a west end gallery. The nave has a central cupola, with a north-east Lady chapel and south-east baptistry opening into the transepts. The transepts are panelled with egg-and-dart moulding, and a similar chancel arch springs from marble pilasters.

The chancel has 2 round-headed windows set high in the coved ceiling west of the domed sanctuary. The chancel walls are lined throughout with grey, black, and pink marble in 2 tiers: the bottom tier forms a dado below a Vitruvian scroll frieze, while the upper tier has paired pilasters in the apse dividing a central integral painting of the Resurrection from statue niches with statues. The north and south walls also have pilasters and moulded marble frames to paintings of Jesus and Pilate and the Crucifixion. The floor is black and white chequered marble, and the altar is solid marble.

The transept galleries have gallery frontals with plaster relief panels of biblical scenes. The west gallery frontal is wrought iron with vine decoration. The west gallery, the Clifford family pew, has a central recessed doorway flanked by statue niches. A round-headed arch over the gallery springs from pilasters. A west end screen below the gallery was added in 1962.

The small south-east baptistry is top-lit and lined with yellow marble, with a black marble font featuring a moulded bowl on a tall stem.

The spectacular tall, narrow north-east Lady chapel is lit from a cupola in a central section of groin vaulting. Like the chancel, the Lady chapel is entirely lined with 2 tiers of marble panels with pilasters. The east wall has a central niche with a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary flanked by pilasters and crowned with a pediment. On the side walls, round-headed recesses with moulded architraves contain integral paintings.

On the north wall, a monument to the 8th Lord Clifford (died 1880) in white and coloured marble has a central relief of the Crucifixion flanked by pilasters with sculptural capitals, friezes of bay leaves and cherubs, and is supported on brackets carved with armorial bearings. A drawing of the monument in the Clifford archive appears to have come from Italy, and it is possible that the whole design of the Lady chapel, and presumably the baptistry, is of Italian origin.

The chapel interior is outstanding, its unique character largely the result of a combination of top-lighting with the richness of the marble decoration.

Significance

Ugbrooke Park is of major historic interest for its long connection with the Clifford family, as the earliest example of Adam's use of a castellated design, for the surviving Adam work in the interior, and for the chapel. The Clifford archive includes numerous Adam drawings and other documents relating to the building history of the house.