Powderham Castle

Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house that has served as the seat of the Courtenays, Earls of Devon, since the 14th century. The building comprises a medieval core with an extensive sequence of 18th-century alterations, principally undertaken in the 1750s and 1760s. A music room was added in 1794–6 by James Wyatt for the third Viscount. In the late 1830s Charles Fowler was employed at the beginning of a 19th-century programme of alterations that continued into the 1860s. Fowler designed a Gothic dining room addition and effectively turned the castle round—it had formerly faced east—by transforming the old service yard to the west into a forecourt with a gatehouse.

The castle is constructed of grey limestone rubble with some fragments of red sandstone and has embattled parapets throughout.

Medieval Origins and Plan

The medieval core in the main range, on a north-south axis, is partly buried within later alterations but originally consisted of an open hall with three service doors at the lower (south) end leading into service rooms and a kitchen to the south. The private apartments to the north of the hall included a first-floor solar. The north wing was a chapel wing (the chapel is mentioned in 1450) projecting east from the main range. A smaller corresponding south wing was probably originally detached and retains a high-quality late medieval roof. It may have been a first-floor or open hall of some kind and, although unheated at present, appears to be shown with stacks in a stylized drawing of 1743.

Four substantial towers survive: a medieval north-west tower, a probably medieval tower in the angle between the main range and north wing, and towers on the west and east walls of the main range. These may be 16th century or 16th-century remodellings and certainly predate 1734, when they are shown in Buck's engraving. A fifth tower is buried in 18th-century alterations to the north wing.

18th-Century Alterations

The programme of 18th-century alterations is described in detail in Mark Girouard's article in Country Life. Before the employment of James Wyatt for the 1790s music room, the work is remarkable for the use of local builders and craftsmen. By 1717 the north wing had been recast as a chapel with a library above. The library (now a drawing room) was refurbished in 1740 with plasterwork (no longer existing) by Jenkins and a baroque chimneypiece, doorcase and bookshelves (now moved downstairs), probably all by J. Channon.

The hall in the main range was subdivided vertically by 1755 when it was split between a spectacular stair hall with a massive open-well stair by James Garrett of Exeter, employed as 'surveyor' to the Powderham Estate, with plasterwork by John Jenkins, and a two-storey-high reception room retaining the medieval service doorways at the lower end of the hall. Further alterations of the 1760s for the second Viscount involved work in the north wing and single-storey rooms flanking the east tower, including rococo ceilings and Gothick windows. In the 1780s the chapel in the north wing was converted into a drawing room (later formed into libraries at the beginning of the 19th century).

The third Viscount, who inherited in 1788, added the splendid music room adjacent to the north wing in 1794–6, designed by Wyatt.

19th-Century Remodelling

The final major programme of alterations was begun by the 10th Earl, who employed Charles Fowler to add a dining hall on the west side of the main range and create a new entrance front on the west side with a baronial courtyard. The whole exterior of the castle was "extensively restored and in part re-Gothicised" (Girouard) at the same time. The dining hall was not completed until the late 1850s, and in 1861 the south wing, with the superior medieval roof, was remodelled as a chapel.

Exterior

The main range is three storeys, the north and south wings are two storeys, and the four-storey towers to north-west, west and east are complemented by single-storey music room, dining room and west bays. All are battlemented and buttressed on the west elevation.

The west elevation features a four-storey entrance tower and the north-west tower projecting at the left, with Fowler's three-bay buttressed single-storey dining hall between the towers. The dining hall has tall transomed Decorated traceried windows. A massive arched doorway leads into the entrance tower below a corbelled oriel window by Fowler. Another oriel of unknown date stands on the main range to the right of the entrance tower. One-, two- and three-light stone windows in square-headed frames, some with cusped heads, are mostly 19th-century restorations but some are probably original.

The east elevation (formerly the main entrance) also has a four-storey entrance tower with a two-leaf Gothick traceried door, flanked by single-storey projecting battlemented bays with Gothick windows. An embattled tower stands in the angle with the north wing, which has five bays of sash windows with Gothick glazing bars on the inner return and one bay to the east end. The south wing has two projections on the inner return and a bay window on the east end. Between the south wing and the east tower the main range, with a projecting turret, rises above a single-storey block.

Adjoining the north wing at the north end, the Wyatt music room projects to the front (east) with a three-sided bay with large two-leaf windows with semi-circular fanlights and ogival glazing bars. The north end of the castle has the north-west tower to the right with a projecting embattled stair turret. Set back from the tower and to the left is a three-bay three-storey block with early 18th-century segmental-headed sash windows with proud architraves. The music room to the left has a three-sided embattled turret.

The south side of the south wing (the present chapel wing) is five bays with a two-bay addition at the east end.

A stone retaining wall to the terrace east of the castle with battlemented bastions is included in the listing.

The Forecourt

Fowler's embattled forecourt buildings, in the baronial style, include a central gatehouse with moulded Tudor arches and a stone rib vault, with a battlemented octagonal corner tower flanked by buttressed embattled walls. Outside the south wall an irregular service range now includes the estate office. On the north side is the Steward's house, partly in a rectangular corner tower, with a second gatehouse to the north-east leading to the drive from Powderham Gate. Grey limestone walling with refuges and octagonal piers at the west end flank the narrow drive immediately in front of the forecourt up to the west gatehouse.

Interior

The interior is described in detail in Girouard's article in Country Life. Of the medieval remains, the three two-centred arched double-chamfered doorways to the service end survive with a flatter arched doorway above, possibly to the hall gallery. A moulded stone fireplace survives in the first-floor solar and a turret stair in the adjoining tower. Blocked doors and windows are also said to survive beneath later wall plaster.

The south wing (now the chapel) contains a fine probably 15th-century six-bay arched-brace roof with hollow-chamfered arch braces carried on carved corbels and windbraces.

The 18th-century work is extensive and splendid, from the early 18th-century chimneypiece and overdoors in the original library (matching the Channon bookcases of 1740) to the magnificent stair hall, described as "the most spectacular space of its date in Devon" (Cherry). The stair, rather archaic for the date, is massive with three flights with barley-sugar balusters. The exuberant plasterwork in deep relief by John Jenkins covers the walls and underside of the flights with a mixture of stylized ornament and naturalistic leaves, fruit and animals with military trophies and musical instruments. The other 18th-century principal rooms (apart from the original library) have later rococo ceilings and fine chimneypieces with original grates and joinery.

The music room by Wyatt, described in 1798 as "the finest and most expensive room in the County" (Swete), is sophisticated Neo-classical with a coffered dome and decorated plaster ceiling (the ceiling retaining original paint) with a frieze incorporating musical instruments. Scagliola Corinthian wall pilasters divide niches filled with large alabaster urns, the roundels above painted by the third Viscount and his sisters. White marble skirting boards run throughout. The splendid marble chimneypiece by R. Westmacott Senior has large white marble figures playing the flute and tambourine; the Thomire grate of 1788 is no longer in the room. The room contains a 1757 organ by Seede in an elaborately decorated case.

Charles Fowler's dining hall, begun in 1835 but finished during the time of the 11th Earl (in possession 1859–1888), has a fine seven-bay painted timber roof, a gallery at the south end with Gothic panelling, a massive painted stone Gothic chimneypiece based on Bishop Peter Courtenay's fireplace in the Bishop's Palace, Exeter, and a dado of linenfold panelling with a frieze of armorial bearings of the Courtenay family.

The present chapel, in the south wing, includes 16th-century carved bench ends that originated from South Huish.

Documentation

Documentation relating to the 18th- and 19th-century building programmes is deposited in the Devon Record Office, and other archive material exists at the castle. Buck's useful engraving of 1743 showing the east elevation before the building was turned round is reproduced as a plate to Harding's article in the Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, and a stylized drawing of the same elevation on a map dated 1743 exists in the Devon Record Office. Swete's 1799 watercolour shows the east and north elevations much as they are today.