Brook Manor House

Brook Manor House is a former manor house dating to 1656. It is constructed of stone rubble, with some areas slate hung and others rendered. The roof is covered with bituminised turned slate, with gabled ends. The building is now L-shaped, having originally been E-shaped, but the western wing (the central range) was destroyed by fire in the 19th century.

The western wing features a three-storey gabled porch on the right, with a round-arched doorway and hood moulds over the first and blocked second floor windows. A datestone reading "1656" is positioned above the first floor window. To the left of the porch are two four-light, chamfered wooden mullion windows in the hall, with horizontally sliding sash windows above, featuring glazing bars. The second floor is blank. A large, rendered external chimney stack is located on the rear wall.

The south-east wing projects to the right and has a slate-hung west side, with a lean-to along the ground floor. The east side of this wing was remodelled around the early 19th century to form the principal front. This section has two storeys and an attic, and is five bays wide. The first floor is slate hung. The ground floor has two-light sashes with glazing bars, and the first floor has four two-light casements. Both ground and first floor windows feature dripmoulds. Four 19th-century gabled attic dormers are present. A central two-storey gabled porch has a round arch doorway.

Inside, the original inner door of the west wing has a heavy, moulded doorframe with carved steps and a moulded, panelled door with a wrought iron door knocker inscribed with the initials "RC 1656" (for Richard Cabell). A large newel staircase is located to the right of a screen passage. A fireplace on the rear wall of the former hall, to the left of the screen passage, has chamfered granite jambs and a wooden lintel with ovolo moulding and gem-cut steps. Heavily moulded doorframes with carved steps are also present.

Richard Cabell, the Lord of the Manor of Brook, was known to be of questionable reputation, and he is the subject of a local legend. The legend states that on the night of his death (allegedly 1677), black hounds, breathing fire and smoke, raced over Dartmoor and surrounded Brook Manor House, howling. He is buried at Holy Trinity Church in Buckfastleigh, and his tomb in the churchyard was designed to contain his remains and prevent him from haunting the area. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based “The Hounds of the Baskervilles” on this legend.