Puddicombe House

Puddicombe House is a house dating to 1802, with refurbishment around 1850-60. It is constructed of plastered stone rubble up to the first floor level, with cob above, and has stone rubble stacks with plastered brick chimneyshafts that have soffit-moulded coping. The roof is slate, with crested ridge tiles. The house faces south-east and is built across a hillslope. Its main block has a double-depth plan, with front and rear rooms accessed by end stacks on either side of a central through passage. The front section of the passage is an entrance hall containing a geometric staircase. The principal rooms are those facing the front, with service rooms to the rear. A single-room parlour block, set back from the front, features an end stack. Further set back from the front of the parlour block, and projecting at a right angle to the rear, is a low service wing.

The main house is two storeys with attics. The symmetrical front facade has three windows, now containing large 20th-century casements, although these replace mid-19th century windows, some of which survive elsewhere in the house. A central doorway has a mid-19th century part-glazed and panelled double door, recessed within a likely early-19th century Doric porch with fluted pilasters, square-section columns, a moulded entablature, a low-pitched roof and sits on a flight of limestone steps. The eaves are plain, and the hipped roof has two dormer windows with hipped roofs. Stucco detail has been lost from the front facade but survives on the rear and ancillary wings, where the plaster is lightly incised to resemble ashlar and features flat corner pilasters and an eaves cornice. Windows on the rear have moulded stucco architraves, with sills supported on shaped consoles. The four-window rear elevation is not symmetrical. A gabled porch with a segmental outer arch and a matching moulded architrave sits above the rear doorway, with a moulded stucco laurel wreath above.

The interior has been little modernised since the 19th century and contains high-quality joinery. The entrance hall features a timber arcade in front of the open-string geometric staircase. This staircase has stick balusters, shaped stair brackets, turned newel posts, and a mahogany handrail. The main rooms have fielded panel doors, moulded plaster cornices, and some have Adams-style chimney pieces. Puddicombe House is an attractive landscape feature overlooking a broad valley in the direction of Drewsteignton village.