Parke House Including The Stables

Parke House, including the Stables

Parke House is now the headquarters of Dartmoor National Park. It was built for William Hole between 1825 and 1828 as the mansion house of the Hole family. The building has rendered solid stone walls, probably of stone, with low-pitched slate roofs. The chimney stacks are rendered with a raised band just below the top, topped with tapered octagonal chimneypots with sunk panels on the sides. The stacks are symmetrically placed, with two on each of the front and side ranges; in the front range they are positioned close together to form a centre feature. A circular stair lantern of wood with a flat leaded roof rises from the middle of the roof, fitted with windows containing small square panes and quarter-panes. At the south-west corner is an octagonal wood cupola with a bell, its turret having open sides and an ogee leaded roof; fluted pilasters mark each angle and panels with a fringe of guttae sit above each opening.

The house is built on a square plan with rooms arranged around four sides of a central stair compartment, and it comprises two storeys. The fronts remain virtually unaltered, particularly on the south-east and north-east sides.

The main entrance front faces south-east and is five windows wide with a centre doorway. The porch is of an inexact Greek Doric type, its two unfluted columns supporting a plain entablature enriched only with guttae, with pilaster responds against the wall face. The porch stands on a stylobate of four granite steps. Double doors of three panels each have the lowest panels flush and the upper panels with raised margin-bands. Narrow sidelights and an overlight are fitted above; the sidelights have a flush panel below and four panes of glass above with quarter-panes at the sides and between them. The overlight, similarly detailed with six panes, contains old Crown glass in several panes. Above the porch is a six-pane sash window flanked by paired spaced pilaster strips reflecting the porch design below, each strip carrying a console that supports a continuous cornice. The remaining windows in this front are plain with six-pane sashes, larger in the ground storey, and most contain old glass. A stringcourse sits just below sill-level in the second storey. The front is finished with a narrow, deeply projecting cornice and low parapet, the latter stepped up slightly in two stages to the centre.

The side-walls are four windows wide with slightly projecting outer bays. The right-hand side has six-paned sashes matching those at the front. The left-hand side differs notably, with a single tripartite window in the centre of the ground storey featuring a six-paned sash in the centre light and two-paned sashes in the side-lights. The left-hand bay contains three storeys fitted in without increasing the wall height. The main ground-storey window here is of two lights with six-paned sashes in each; to its right is a narrow window with upper and lower casements of four panes each. In the third storey a tripartite window has an eight-paned sash in the lower part of the centre light, the upper sash having been replaced by a two-light casement with two panes per light; the side-lights have two-paned sashes each.

At the rear of the building is a re-used late 16th or early 17th century door and wooden doorframe. The frame is ovolo-moulded with raised run-out stops at the foot and a cranked head. A studded plank door features long wrought-iron strap-hinges with fleurs-de-lis terminals and a simple wrought-iron knocker.

The interior contains several notable features. The vestibule has a modillion cornice. At the rear is a pair of three-panel doors with glazed side-lights and a rectangular overlight, all glazed in small square panes with quarter-panes. This leads into the central stair hall, the main feature of the house. An open-well wooden staircase rises to the second storey with cut strings decorated only with thin reed moulding, thin oblong-section balusters—three to a tread—moulded nosings to the treads, and a wreathed handrail. A modillion cornice sits under the second storey landing. Doors leading from the stair hall are mostly six-panelled with panelled reveals; second storey panels have raised margin-mouldings. On the south-west side of the ground storey, a pair of double doors has the upper part glazed with small square panes and quarter-panes. This compartment features a plain cornice and shallow domed ceiling; each slight tympanum has panelled intrados with a centre patera and continuous egg-and-dart border, and a panelled soffit. The centre ceiling opens into an elliptical lantern with its lower drum decorated with wreaths and upper part glazed, fluted pilasters sitting between the lights. The ceiling of the lantern has a large foliated plaster boss at its centre. Little of architectural interest remains in the rooms, though the north-east ground-storey room has window architraves with Grecian detail.

The stable block is an L-shaped structure abutting the north-west side of the house at its north-east end. It is two-storeyed with solid roughcast walls and a slated roof. It has few architectural features: a gable with shaped bargeboards at the south-west end, two door-hoods on scrolled brackets, plank doors (one with wrought-iron strap-hinges), and 19th century wood casement windows with two or three panes per light. The block appears to date from around the same period as the house, though some believe it to be the remains of the pre-1825 Parke House. In the garden at the front of the house is a cooling house, which is separately listed.

The previous house at Parke was a pre-1700 building of some quality with an imposing outer gate to the courtyard.