Southbrook

Villa, built in 1882 (with a date of 1883 recorded in stained glass), constructed for Mr Hooper, said to have been an Exeter architect but not appearing in contemporary Exeter directories. The building is constructed of yellow brick with red brick dressings and terracotta decoration, topped with a red fish scale tiled roof and chimneys with yellow brick shafts featuring vertical red brick bands. The style is eclectic free Gothic and the building is remarkably well-preserved both externally and internally.

The plan is approximately L-shaped, with principal rooms in an east-facing block overlooking the Exe estuary and services in a rear left wing. The main entrance on the north side of the main block leads into a large stair hall, with a dining room and sitting room to the left (east) and a parlour to the south. A passage from the stair hall leads into the service wing with service rooms on either side.

The exterior is two storeys and attic, irregular in form with timber-framed gables with deep eaves decorated with finials and pendants. A terracotta and moulded brick platband runs across the facade, and the building retains a complete set of original high transomed casement windows with stained glass in the top lights. The entrance elevation on the north has a four-storey tower at the centre of the main block, projecting to the front, with the top stage clad in timber-framing and a hipped roof crowned with ornamental ironwork. A porch projects from the tower with a sloping tiled canopy carried on curved brackets supported on corbels, featuring a moulded stone arched doorway with a hoodmould and carved label stops. The original large panelled front door retains strap hinges. On the right return of the main block stands a large three-light window entirely filled with stained glass, lighting the stair. The three-bay east elevation has a two-storey bay to the left gabled to the front and a two-storey canted bay to the right, also gabled to the front, with a two-leaf garden door in the centre. The south elevation is long and irregular, with a two-storey canted bay gabled to the front at the right and a single-storey bay window to the left lighting the parlour, with a gabled roof above. The service wing is gabled to the south at the left, and the north elevation of the service wing is gabled to the north, ending in a single-storey laundry at the north end with a stack.

The interior is perfectly well-preserved, including all joinery and good chimney-pieces, notably a very lively Jacobean Revival chimney-piece in the dining room. The porch features good 1882 floor tiling. A grand free Jacobean open well stair with turned balusters and a ramped handrail survives, the balustrade eccentrically curled at the bottom. Plaster cornices are present throughout, including a wall frieze (possibly pressed paper) in the parlour. Stained glass survives, particularly a pretty series of birds in the top lights of some windows. Some unusual light fittings survive; a timber chandelier in the dining room may be original and Art Nouveau suspended light fittings in some rooms may be from the late 19th century. The service wing is also very intact and includes a late 19th-century range stamped Hubber of Exeter. One of the few post-1880s alterations is the refurbishment of a cloakroom in the stair hall in the 1920s, which has been entirely lined with peach and pale green marble. This is a rare example of a perfectly-preserved ambitious 1882 villa, with the profile of the roof and tower clearly visible from the road.