Buckland Manor

Buckland Manor

Country house completed in 1810 by James Green, the County Engineer, for the Fortescue family, with a later 19th-century addition. The building is rendered stone with a hipped slate roof and rendered brick chimney stacks.

The house is designed with three principal fronts. The north entrance front features five symmetrical bays with the outer and central ones pedimented, arranged 2:2:3:2:2:2 with 9-pane sashes on the first floor and tall 15-pane sashes below, all set in eared architraves. The left-hand bay windows are blind. A Greek Doric balustraded porte-cochere set on four columns projects in front, with an arched doorway behind containing original panelled double doors.

The imposing left-hand (east) elevation is dominated by a giant tetrastyle Doric pedimented portico. Nine symmetrically placed window openings are arranged across this front, though most are blind except for those on the first floor to the right and ground floor to right and centre. The first-floor windows are later 19th-century 2-light casements above French windows set in what appear to be original openings. Between the portico columns are three contemporary stone vases. A large lantern sits in the roof behind the portico.

The rear (south) elevation is more irregular, nine windows wide with a 2-storey pedimented porch to the left of centre. A wing projects from the right-hand end at an obtuse angle, and the left-hand section is slightly recessed with a later 19th-century extension beyond. The fenestration on both floors is mainly original, with similar sash windows. The 2-storey porch has a segmental arch flanked by pilasters. The projecting right wing features a large original bay window on the ground floor with a flat roof forming a balcony topped by what may be contemporary wrought ironwork.

The interior is largely complete and principally finished in Greek Doric and Ionic styles. Principal ground-floor rooms have decorative plaster cornices and ceiling bands. The galleried ballroom (or saloon), a double-storey space with a gallery running round it, is fitted with pilasters and a frieze of triglyphs and mutules. The room to its rear also has pilasters and two fluted Ionic columns flanking the doorway. The cantilevered gallery above the ballroom features a cast iron balustrade, Ionic columns, and a lantern with plaster decoration.

The asymmetrical plan comprises a north entrance leading through a short passage to the stairhall, with a galleried ante-room to its left from which doors lead to principal rooms at front and rear. The large double-storey galleried room may have served as a ballroom or saloon. Rooms to the right of the stairhall include service areas, with an original front wing projecting from the right end and a 19th-century addition at this point, probably also for service purposes.

One of the rear southern rooms preserves sections of late 16th-century, 17th-century and 18th-century panelling with late 16th-century cresting and finials, and heraldic shields in the frieze representing families who have occupied the manor. This same room retains late 16th-century moulded ceiling beams.

An earlier house undoubtedly stood on the site. Evidence of late 16th-century panelling and beams in the rear rooms suggests the present house incorporates the core of its predecessor, though in virtually unrecognisable form. An old print corroborates this earlier occupation. The current structure represents one of the earliest surviving Greek Doric revival houses and remains very substantially unaltered whilst preserving elements of the earlier house within it.