Wortham

Wortham is a manor house of outstanding national importance, dating from the 15th century and remodelled in the early 16th century for the Dinham family. It underwent late 20th-century alterations and renovations for the Landmark Trust. The north side of the main range is dressed stone brought to course, while the south side is stone rubble; the porch is ashlar masonry. The house has a late 20th-century scantle slate roof gabled at the ends, with the east wing hipped at the south end. There are seven stone stacks: those on the main range have late 20th-century moulded granite caps, with stacks at the gable ends and on the ridge of the main range plus one lateral stack on the north front; one stack sits on the ridge of the east wing and two adjacent lateral stacks are on the east side.

Origins and Development

The 15th-century plan appears to have been an open hall house, probably associated with an end stack, with an east cross-wing. It has been suggested that at one time there was also a west wing. The house was remodelled at an unusually early date for Devon in the early 16th century. The hall was ceiled over and heated from a lateral stack with access to a heated first-floor chamber from a projecting stair turret on the south side. A three-stage porch was added on the north side, and the east wing was extended southwards and probably truncated on the north side.

Internally, the ceiling of the parlour (which is below the screens passage) appears to be contemporary with the early 16th-century hall ceiling. A first-floor plank-and-muntin full-height partition dividing the room above the hall into two also appears to date from the early 16th century, as do plank-and-muntin partitions to the first floor of the east wing. Access to the first-floor rooms in the east wing may have been from a stair leading up from a lobby on the south-east side of the hall.

Of the 15th-century house, the roof of the open hall survives in part, along with a much-restored 15th-century roof at the north end of the east wing which may have been the great chamber. Some cusped windows and an ogee-headed doorway in the east wing are also 15th-century but may not all be in their original positions. The early 16th-century hall and parlour ceilings, numerous doors and doorways, and first-floor screens are largely intact. The parlour was partly refurbished in the late 16th or early 17th century.

20th-century alterations have involved a thorough programme of alteration and repair, the removal of a later addition at the west end, gabling the east wing to the north and west, and extending the wing southwards.

Exterior

The house is of two storeys with a six-window north front; the left-hand bay is the gable end of the east wing. Disturbance to the masonry suggests that the east wing may have been a cross-wing prior to the 16th-century remodelling. The three-stage gabled porch is approximately central to the main range. The lateral hall stack rises above a late 20th-century parapet on the left-hand side of the main range only.

The windows are two-, three-, and four-light granite mullioned windows with diagonal leaded panes, iron stanchions, and saddle bars throughout. All windows have Tudor arched heads to the lights except the first-floor porch window, which has three cusped lights and a hoodmould with carved label stops. All four-light windows also have hoodmoulds, carved label stops, and king mullions except the ground-floor left window, which appears to be a large 20th-century copy.

The grand moulded stone arched doorway to the porch has carved spandrels and an elaborate tympanum with blind tracery and roundels bearing star and wheel motifs. The doorway has an arched hoodmould and carved label stops and is very close in design to a doorway and the remains of tympana at the Old College, Week St Mary, to which John Dinham was a feoffee to the deed of endowment.

The south side of the main range has a break in the plinth which may indicate a former wing or the abutment of a wall, and has only two mullioned windows (one of them 20th-century) to the left of the stair turret, which rises above the eaves line under a gabled roof. The turret has canted corners which are corbelled out at eaves level to support the gabled ashlar top. The turret masonry is not tied into the south wall but is probably contemporary with the adjacent doorway to the screens passage, which is arched and moulded with a square-headed hoodmould.

On the east side of the east wing, a pair of lateral stacks (one projecting) heats the kitchen. A reconstructed wide stone porch under a sloping slate roof leads into the kitchen. One of the three first-floor mullioned windows has three re-sited cusped lights and may date from the 15th-century build; the other windows are two-light with Tudor arches and hoodmoulds.

On the west side, a moulded stone arched doorway leads into the 16th-century part of the wing, flanked by two single-light windows—one with a Tudor arch, the other rectangular. A single-light Tudor arched window lights the first floor of the early 16th-century addition, which is marked by a straight joint. In the earlier part of the wing, a two-light mullioned Tudor arched window lights the lobby, while a cusped freestone window above probably dates from the 15th century but may not be in its original position.

Interior

The circa mid to late 15th-century moulded arch-braced roof to the former open hall survives with three tiers of moulded stopped purlins and three tiers of wind bracing (mostly replaced). The roof is very similar to that at Cotehele. Some ancient colour remains on the braces and purlins. The solar above the kitchen retains part of a 15th-century arched-braced roof with one tier of wind bracing and square-set purlins.

The 16th-century hall ceiling is particularly fine, with five cross beams and all joists moulded with carved foliage stops. The cross-beam stops are large and elaborate and of similar character to the bosses of the parlour ceiling. The early 16th-century screen is remarkable for consisting of three separate partitions, each with linenfold panelling in a moulded framework crowned by massive crocketted pinnacles. The sections do not close against the wall, and each partition has been cut off above the sill; the pinnacles have been cut down at top and bottom to fit under the cross beam. The linenfold panelling has similarities with French carpentry, and presumably the whole screen has been introduced from elsewhere. The fireplace is an early 20th-century introduction. A recess to the left of the fireplace may mark the position of the open hall window.

The parlour ceiling bears a marked resemblance to the hall ceiling in some of its details. It is wholly Gothic in character with moulded timber ribs with carved bosses fixed to 20th-century boarding. In the circa late 16th or early 17th century, the parlour was partly refurbished with panelling divided by fluted pilasters and a frieze of carved panels above. The chimneypiece has fluted pilasters with grotesque masks supporting a cornice below a frieze of round-headed arches with male and female caryatids between. Within the frieze, panels of pots of flowers flank a central double-headed eagle panel. A fine early 16th-century arched plank door gives into the parlour from the stair turret.

The principal chamber above the hall is divided from a closet by a two-tier plank-and-muntin partition that rises to the apex of the roof with a moulded rail at wallplate level mortised for a ceiling that no longer exists. A second plank-and-muntin partition divides the closet from the porch chamber and has a two-light slit window in it overlooking the entrance from a newel stair rising from the north porch. There have been some alterations to the screen. The principal chamber is heated at the left end from the stack that may have been the original open hall stack, with a 16th-century fireplace with a replaced lintel.

The chamber above the parlour also has an early 16th-century fireplace, and a narrow closet adjoining this room at the west has two round-headed wall niches and a shallow fireplace with a 15th-century carved timber lintel. The kitchen has two roughly chamfered cross beams with diagonal stops and a double fireplace, one with a timber lintel, one with a brick lintel. Several of the early 16th-century plank-and-muntin screens to the first floor of the east wing show traces of ancient colour. The east wing also has the reused remains of a 17th-century staircase balustrade with bobbin balusters and one fine 17th-century fireplace.

History

The manor of Wortham passed by marriage from the Wortham family to a cadet branch of the Dinhams in the reign of Richard II and became the principal seat of the Dinhams when the main branch of the family died out in 1501. It has been suggested that the house was originally moated. Mid 20th-century photographs in Country Life show the west lime-washed and without the present north and west gables. Philip Tilden owned the house in the early 20th century and is likely to have been responsible for considerable works prior to the work by Paul Pearn for the Landmark Trust.

The house is a remarkable survival of a medieval house with a substantial modernisation of the early 16th century. The survival of the early 16th-century plan in combination with a wealth of contemporary joinery makes this a house of outstanding national importance.