Bitton House

TEIGNMOUTH

SX9373 BITTON PARK ROAD 25-1/4/101 (South side) 30/06/49 Bitton House

GV II*

Large house in its own grounds, now district council premises. Late C18, remodelled c1835 by George Basevi for Matthew Praed, poet; late C19 interior alterations. Painted stucco, slate roof with late C19 moulded stucco stacks. PLAN: U-plan with long south garden front. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. A cornice, parapet with moulded coping and a platband surround the building, banded rustication to the rear and returns. Symmetrical 6-window north entrance front has banded pilasters and moulded semicircular arches over flat-arched 6/6-pane sash windows to the 1st floor; the 2-window central block flanked by pilasters has a projecting semi-octagonal single-storey porch (probably C19) with cornice, moulded coping to a parapet, moulded pilasters to the angles, moulded panels below the windows (blind to the sides) and a segmental-arched doorcase with overlight to double doors; the projecting side wings have stacks behind pediments and moulded roundels to the apexes; the 4/4-pane tripartite sash windows to the ground-floor are set in segmental-arched recesses. The west front has 2 full-height canted bays. The 1st floor has shouldered architraves, and consoles rising from the platband to the sills of 6/6-pane sash windows. French windows to the ground floor are under a deep swept tented verandah supported by cast-iron columns. The 11-window range south garden front was embellished mid C19. The 1st floor has 6/6-pane sash windows in similar architraves to the west front. Those to the left and centre are articulated by fluted pilasters rising from consoles below the platband and extending through the cornice. Flanking the central window are shallow curved bays, above them and to theleft the parapet is panelled with guttae motifs. 4 raised panels above the parapet; 2 to the centre of the bays, those to the centre and left-hand range with antefixae and anthemion motifs to the centre. 3 windows to each bay are 6/9-pane sashes below ornamental panels and keystones to segmental-arched moulded architraves. INTERIOR: altered, but surviving features include 6-panel doors and joinery, fireplaces, enriched cornicing to ground-floor rooms, elegant curved staircase with stick balusters and a stained glass panel to inner door with a portrait of Admiral Pellew (who owned the property from (1812-33).

(The Buildings of England: Pevsner & Cherry B: Devon: London: 1989-: 798).