Chagford House Including Front Terrace

Chagford House Including Front Terrace

A small mansion of approximately 1820, built of plastered granite rubble with a slate roof. The house faces north-east and follows a double-depth plan with the principal rooms positioned at the centre and north-western end of the main block. These rooms flank a spacious entrance hall and rear staircase, served by back-to-back fireplaces via an axial stack. The left rooms are also served by axial and end stacks respectively. The main block extends south-eastwards with a slightly set-back front, containing two small rooms (one a study) with their own stacks, and service rooms to the rear. A kitchen block with an end stack projects to the rear, left of centre. The building is two storeys with some attic space. Chimney stacks are constructed of granite rubble with some plastered brick tops, though the principal shafts are granite ashlar.

The exterior features a prominent five-window front facing the principal rooms, composed mostly of original twelve-pane sashes symmetrically arranged around a large central doorway. The doors are panelled and part-glazed with glazing bars, topped by an overlight with a geometric pattern of glazing bars, double margin panes and corner rosettes. The doors have fielded panel reveals and are sheltered by a flat-roofed Tuscan porch with large turned granite outer columns and moulded timber architrave. Plain projecting eaves crown the front, with hipped roofs at both ends. The three-window ends also contain twelve-pane sashes. The rear elevation features a large round-headed sash window to the stairs with Y-tracery glazing bars, below which stands a secondary porch possibly of later date. This porch extends along the kitchen block as storage sheds. The left parlour has a double twelve-pane sash divided by a plain granite mullion. The kitchen block possesses a hipped roof and includes a first-floor round-headed sash, a smaller version of the stair window, on its inner side. The service courtyard formed between the kitchen block and service end is enclosed with twelve-pane sashes and some ground-floor fixed pane windows protected by external iron bars.

The interior remains little modernised. The entrance hall is lined with tall full-height panelling above the dado. The staircase is a large geometric structure with an open string, slender turned balusters, moulded mahogany handrail and curtain step. All principal rooms are panelled in matching style. The left front parlour features an original grey marble chimneypiece with console-shaped fluted sides and a papier-mâché ceiling in Jacobean style. The right front parlour contains a secondary timber bolection chimneypiece with panelled overmantel containing portraits, and a papier-mâché ceiling in Adams style. The interior contains much good joinery detail throughout, supplemented by some secondary late nineteenth-century Jacobean and seventeenth-century-style detail.

The front terrace is enclosed by a low open granite balustrade with a soffit-moulded flat-topped rail supported on square king posts, with thinner chamfered balusters between them reminiscent of local seventeenth-century window mullions. Plain granite flower bowls sit along the top.