Capeltor

Capeltor is a house in Lamerton, Devon, originally built as a mid-19th century residence for the mine captain of Devon Great United Mine, later converted to farmhouse use and now a private house. The building incorporates the structure of an earlier, probably 18th-century cottage which was enlarged and altered in the mid-19th century. Early 20th-century alterations and late 20th-century internal modifications have followed.

The building is constructed of rubble with slate hung over rubble on the entrance front, whitewashed gable end and rear walls. It has a double span slate roof with rendered gable end stacks to the front range and to the south-west gable of the rear range. The building rises to two storeys with a single storey lean-to at the south-west end.

The front range contains the walls of the original cottage with two rooms separated by a cross wall. The north-east gable and wall of the rear range show evidence of an 18th-century rear wing with a chimney stack that was heightened in the mid-19th century in a padded gable. A central stairwell occupies the rear range with a room to either side.

The entrance front features a mid-19th century single storey timber entrance porch carried on rendered dwarf walls to either side of the doorway. Octagonal wooden columns at the outer corners of the porch support a deep entablature with heavily moulded cornice decorated with plain paterae applied to the frieze. Fixed glazed lights with central vertical and horizontal glazing bars flank the porch doorway and sides. A panelled door with glazed upper panels leads to the porch, with a 20th-century inner door beyond. Flanking the porch are two 19th-century sashes with central vertical glazing bars, with two further similar sashes on the first floor above.

To the left, a two-light casement with glazing bars sits in the end wall of the lean-to, beneath a hipped return to the roof. The return wall features a 20th-century four-light casement with glazing bars (six panes in each light) and a small four-pane casement to the first floor above. The rear wall has a central doorway with boarded door flanked by two-light casements to either side, and three two-light casements on the first floor, all with glazing bars and six or eight panes in each light. The lean-to to the right has a two-light casement with central horizontal bars in its end wall under a segmental arched head.

Internally, the front room to the right contains a mid-19th century cast iron fireplace with jamb shafts and foliage in the spandrels, beneath a polished black stone chamfered mantel (brought into the house in 1982). The front room to the left retains panelled cupboards to left and right of the fireplace and window jamb shutters. A staircase at the rear rises in a straight flight with a stick balustrade and moulded newel to the landing. In a bedroom on the first floor is a fireplace with a mid-19th century decorative cast iron grate.