Stable Yard And Service Buildings North West Of Dawlish College (Mamhead House)

Stable Yard and Service Buildings North West of Dawlish College (Mamhead House)

This stable yard and associated service buildings were constructed between 1828 and 1833 by architect Anthony Salvin for Sir R.W. Newman, Baronet. Built in red sandstone rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings, the complex was designed in the Baronial Gothic style and has since been converted for use as classrooms and sports facilities. The brewery is a copy of Belsay Castle in Northumbria.

The stable yard and service buildings are positioned north-west of Mamhead House, situated high above it, and are designed as a craggy, picturesque foil to the main house. The complex comprises a central courtyard entered through a gatehouse at the north-west corner, with stable ranges to the west, the brewery in the north-east corner, a castellated wall along the east side overlooking the rear elevation of the house, and an elevated drying yard located outside the main stable yard. Entry from the house on the east side is via flights of covered steps parallel to service rooms used as cellerage and laundries.

The Gatehouse is a massive, squat structure flanked by left and right bastions with plinths and plain parapets. Each bastion features two first-floor trefoil-headed slit windows and an arrow slit on the inner return. A moulded depressed two-centred arched doorway with a fake portcullis is recessed between the bastions, with stepped castellations above and a segmental moulded arch in front of and above the door imitating a design for pouring boiling oil onto unwelcome visitors. The gateway is vaulted internally with red sandstone ribs and brick infill, with shouldered doorways to left and right; a shouldered doorway leads out into the stable yard.

The Stable Ranges on the west side facing the yard feature four round-headed doorways below small windows and, on the south side, a block with a central double-chamfered arch. The west range underwent some alterations in the 1980s, where a concrete block wall was constructed.

The Brewery, based on Belsay Castle in Northumbria, was positioned to allow beer to be gravity-fed to the cellars. It is a three-storey embattled structure with three corbelled-out rounded corner turrets and a fourth square-plan stair turret facing into the stable yard. It features shouldered doorframes, slit windows (some with cusped heads), and paired trefoil-headed windows to the first floor on each face with cusped detail above the arches. On the stable yard side is a four-light ground-floor mullioned window and a corbelled-out garderobe feature on the second floor. The other faces are partly obscured by foliage. The interior is said to be partly vaulted.

The service ranges have brick vaulted roofs. The drying yard is enclosed by red sandstone walls with stepped battlementing at each corner.

Salvin's original drawings survive in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection.