Summerhouse in the Wilderness at Ss2997326515

The Summerhouse in The Wilderness, located at SS2997326515, is a Grade II listed structure built in 1820 by Dame Diana Hamlyn. It was later restored for Christine Hamlyn by friends and family on her eightieth birthday, November 30, 1935, and again restored in 1976. The summerhouse features coursed rubble walls with slate hung on the south and west sides, topped by a low-pitched pyramidal slate roof adorned with a large wooden cruciform finial and a small shaped wooden eaves cornice.

The building has a square plan and is situated on a steeply sloping hill, offering views of the sea. The south side includes an open verandah on a rubble plinth with a stone sett pavement, supported by four slender octagonal wooden columns. The summerhouse is designed in the Gothick style and is a single storey.

On the exterior, the south elevation has a central door flanked by two-light casements, forming an arcade of six-pointed arches. The door is currently missing, and the windows and toplights lack glazing. The north elevation features a pointed-arch door opening with paired plank doors that have Gothick cover moulds.

Inside, the summerhouse consists of a large single room with plastered walls and a tongue-and-groove ceiling. The concrete floor was renewed around 1976. Fixed wooden seats are set across three corners, and small cupboards with four-centred arch wooden surrounds are built into two walls, although the doors are missing.

This unusual building is part of a romantic landscape created in a wooded valley by the sea and is situated within the landscaped park around Clovelly Court.