Moreton (Now Part Of Grenville College)

Moreton, now part of Grenville College, is a large house dating to approximately 1821. It is built of solid rendered walls with a hipped slate roof, featuring rendered chimneys at the front and yellow-brick chimneys at the rear. The building has a U-shaped plan, comprising a front range, a rear parallel range, and an infilling courtyard leading to a service building with its own courtyard surrounded by ranges on all four sides.

The main front of the house is three stories high with an eight-window front and a matching return to the left. The central doorway is framed by a four-columned Doric porch, now glazed, sheltering a four-panelled door with the two upper panels glazed. Flanking the porch are bow windows supported by pilasters and an entablature, each with three sash windows, except the lower sashes on the left, which have lost their glazing bars. Upper-floor windows are plain with barred sashes: 6 over 9 panes to the second storey, and 3 over 6 panes to the third storey. Giant pilasters flank the entire front, topped by an entablature and parapet. The return front to the left is similar in style but without the bow windows; the ground-floor window on the right has no glazing bars, nor do the lower sashes of the fourth and sixth windows from the left. A raised band runs between the ground and second storeys. The rear range features barred sash windows similar to the front. The service building has sash windows with margin panes.

The interior includes numerous 19th-century panelled doors and shutters, along with enriched ceilings and cornices. The main staircase was rebuilt shortly after 1913, and three first-floor rooms were combined to create a ballroom. The entrance hall features 20th-century Georgian-style panelling and a 19th-century Tudor-style black marble chimneypiece with a Gothic fireback. The Jacobean-style oak staircase has turned balusters, carved newels, a Georgian-style panelled dado, and an early 19th-century enriched oval cupola, restored in 1989. A corridor along the rear wing has panelled pilasters and a groined-vaulted ceiling. The front left ground-floor room and the two wing rooms behind it all have enriched ceilings and cornices. The ballroom has apsidal ends with Adam-style panelling and a ceiling, as well as an early 19th-century white marble chimneypiece with caryatids and a carved frieze.

The site was originally Daddon, the 18th-century seat of George Buck, who is thought to have started rebuilding around 1760 although the building's irregular plan suggests earlier fabric was incorporated. Lewis William Buck is said to have completed the work and renamed the house Moreton in 1821; he served as a Member of Parliament for Exeter and North Devon. Sir Hugh Stueley, later made alterations after moving here in 1913.