Broomford Manor Including Service Yard Immediately To North-West And Stable Yard Immediately To North Of That

Broomford Manor is a country house built between 1871 and 1873 by the architect George Devey for Colonel Sir Robert White-Thompson. It is a rare Devon example of work by this major Victorian architect.

The house is constructed in the Neo-Jacobean style with walls of small dressed rubble blocks and a many-gabled tiled roof. Tall brick chimney shafts rise from stone bases. The building comprises two storeys with a cellar and attic, intentionally arranged in an asymmetrical plan and elevation.

The entrance front features a projecting Dutch gable to the left, with a large single-storey gabled porch containing a depressed four-centred arched moulded stone doorway. To the right of this gable is a five-light transomed mullion window on the ground floor, with three and two-light mullion windows above. The right-hand end of the front elevation is lower and recessed, with a four-light mullion on the ground floor and a three-light mullion above. All fenestration is original, comprising stone mullioned and transomed windows throughout.

The garden front on the left-hand side has a projecting gable to the right and a large two-storey semi-circular bay to its left, with a projecting stone lateral chimney stack beyond it. The rear elevation contains a large projecting gable to the right with a smaller shallow rectangular window projection on its face. A recessed gable to the left features two four-centred moulded stone doorways. To their left, a curving window projection connects the main range to a service wing. The right-hand elevation is highly irregular with numerous gables, some projecting in front of others.

The interior, while less elaborate than the exterior suggests, contains a mixture of classical, Gothic and Jacobean styles. The two-storey kitchen has exposed truss feet and a large open fireplace. The dining room features a fireplace with a Tudor-arched stone lintel and classical wooden surround, as do other principal rooms. The entrance hall contains a fireplace with a Jacobean-style wooden overmantle. The staircase is simple with turned balusters and square newels with ball finials. An early central heating system survives, with radiators set behind ornate iron grilles of Gothic design.

The plan is complex and asymmetrical. The entrance hall forms a small wing. Two principal rooms overlook the garden on the left-hand side; the dining room faces the entrance to the right of these. Behind the entrance hall is a large stairhall with a study to its right. Service rooms and a large kitchen occupy wings to the rear and right-hand end.

The listing includes the terrace and a low pierced stone wall with arched openings and brick piers immediately to the south-east of the house. The service yard lies immediately to the north-west of the house and contains mainly single-storey buildings including a game larder, boot hole, ash house, log house and laundry. The laundry building opposite the house is reached by stone steps. The stable yard lies immediately to the north of the service yard and incorporates the back of the laundry, with a coach house at right angles and a stable building projecting from it, still in use as stables. These yards remain very unaltered.