Ruins Of Stevenstone House

The ruins of Stevenstone House represent a late 19th-century mansion built on an older site between 1872 and 1873 by the Honourable Mark George Kerr Rolle. The house was reduced in size around 1914 and abandoned circa 1945. It is constructed of grey snecked stone with cream-coloured limestone detailing, with rendered brick internally. The original slate roof is now gone, leaving brick and stone stacks with snecked stone chimneyshafts and limestone coping.

The plan of the ruined mansion shows that the east front, originally the main façade, was rebuilt further back when the eastern half of the house was removed around 1914. Internal walls have collapsed and are heavily overgrown, making a room-by-room description impossible. Principal rooms were once located on the south and east sides, with service rooms concentrated in the north-western corner. A service block connecting this corner to Stevestone Court has been demolished. The house formerly had two storeys and a basement.

The ruins are heavily overgrown, and walls rarely reach their original height. A three-story turret and stack remain relatively intact in the south-west corner, and a large projecting stack dominates the east front. Windows were originally set within limestone ashlar architraves, with some featuring curvilinear pediments displaying the carved Rolle arms. Limestone modillion friezes formed the eaves cornices and chimneyshaft cornices. The east front, with its irregular five-window façade interrupted by the projecting stack, has a central doorway leading to the remains of a stone ashlar porch with external rusticated stone and a panelled interior. The south front, overlooking the deer park, originally had a four-window front. A projecting bay window, once centrally positioned according to a pre-1914 photograph, is visible at the right end. The interior is completely collapsed, although some walls retain remnants of plasterwork. One room in the south-west corner still displays fragments of a moulded plaster cornice with a modillion frieze. All original carpentry, joinery, and fixtures have been removed. This was one of two major houses owned by the Rolle family, who were the largest landowners in Devon in the late 19th century and significantly shaped the surrounding landscape, leaving a lasting legacy on the parish of St Giles in the Wood.