Manor House Hotel Including Terraces Immediately To South East

Manor House Hotel, North Bovey

A country house built in 1907 by the architect Detmar Blow for Viscount Hambledon, now in use as a hotel. The building was extended in the 1930s and the hall was floored in the early 1980s. It is constructed of snecked squared granite blocks with dressed stone quoins and Bath stone dressings to doors and windows. The roof is high pitched clay tile with tall grouped octagonal granite chimneys. The main building displays Jacobean style architecture and comprises two storeys with an attic floor.

The entrance front (north-west) is asymmetrical with five bays, including later additions projecting from the left end and extending from the right end. The outer bays project and are gabled, each with three tiers of mullioned windows of decreasing size rising upwards, with ground and first floor windows being transomed. A projecting central two-storey porch has a shaped gable and a four-light mullioned and transomed window above a semi-circular stone arched doorway. To the right of the porch are single-light and four-light mullioned and transomed windows on ground and first floors. To the left is a very large twelve-light mullioned and transomed stair window with arched lights. A buttress adjoins this, followed by a three-light mullioned and transomed window on ground and first floors. The middle section between the two projecting gables is battlemented. Good lead inscribed rain-water heads feature on the elevations.

The rear garden front (south-east) presents a similar though more symmetrical five-bay arrangement to the main block with an irregular right end. Two projecting outer bays with pointed gables flank a central projecting ground floor entrance loggia of three bays with round-headed arched doorways and a recessed shaped gable above. Either side of the loggia are projecting two-storey window bays with six-light mullioned and transomed windows to both floors. Between these bays and the gabled outer bays are recessed sections with six-light mullioned and transomed windows. The section between the two outer projecting bays is battlemented with a string-course above ground and first floor windows. To the right of the main block is an asymmetrical four-window battlemented block with a projecting gabled bay at the far right containing two tiers of mullioned windows and arcaded arched doorways to the ground floor. To the left of the projecting gable is a canted five-light mullioned and transomed oriel window with irregularly placed mullioned and transomed windows around it. Drip-courses run above each level of windows with three stone gargoyles above the upper course.

A stone balustraded garden terrace retaining wall runs the full length of the house in front, with steps opposite the entrance loggia leading to an intermediate stage from which steps descend either side.

Interior

The interior is of high quality. A roughly central entrance hall leads to a long passage running the length of the building. This passage is groin vaulted with arcading of carved stone arched doorways and moulded plasterwork. The main rooms open to the south from this passage, looking onto the garden. These include an Adam style drawing room and an elaborately panelled dining room with an ornate carved wooden overmantle to the fireplace and a moulded plaster ceiling of ribs and pendants.

The great hall occupies the space to the right of the entrance hall. Originally two storeys in height with a gallery at one end, it was ceiled in during the early 1980s to create two rooms. The lower section retains panelled walls with a two-bay arcade at one end and a splat baluster staircase leading to the former gallery beyond. At the opposite end is a very elaborately carved stone fireplace. The room above features stone arcading around the sides and a roof of moulded arched braced tie-beams with carved spandrels and trefoil-headed arcading above the trusses. Moulded purlins and ridge mouldings are present. An elaborately carved Jacobean style staircase serves the building.

Later additions to the north and west end were made in the 1930s.