Canonteign Barton

Canonteign Barton, Christow

A grade I listed manor house dating from circa the late 16th century, substantially restored in the 1970s. The building is constructed of stone rubble with granite dressings and has a slate gabled roof with projecting external chimney stacks featuring granite ashlar shafts.

The house follows an E-shaped plan, studiously symmetrical, with the main block facing east and a central porch, flanked by short north and south crosswings. The internal layout has been obscured by modern partition alterations. The hall originally occupied the space to the left of the porch, with a modest 17th-century dog-leg stair leading off from the hall's rear left. The left crosswing now comprises one large front room and a smaller rear room, though the partition between them is modern. The right crosswing originally had two heated rooms with the partition now removed. A small heated room between the right crosswing and hall contains a 1970s stair to the rear. The first floor was rearranged in the 1970s, though remnants of a plaster chimneypiece above a blocked fireplace suggest a great chamber originally stood above the hall. The second storey, now attic space, appears to have contained a long gallery to the front with a series of small heated chambers to the rear. No stair currently serves this level. The moulded chimneypieces in these chambers are surprisingly fine and suggest they may have been guest chambers rather than servants' accommodation. No subsidiary buildings remain, and no obvious kitchen or service rooms are evident within the structure.

The exterior presents three storeys with a symmetrical seven-window frontage. A central three-storey gabled porch is flanked by the gabled ends of the crosswings and projecting lateral stacks with granite ashlar shafts. The front elevation features a granite plinth, string-courses and coped granite gables. A complete set of granite mullioned and transomed windows in 3-, 4-, 6- and 8-light configurations is fitted with 20th-century square leaded panes. The second-storey windows feature hoodmoulds, with string courses acting as hoodmoulds for windows on other levels. The porch is slender and crowned with a bellcote; a recess in the gable originally held armorial bearings. A narrow moulded square-headed outer doorway gives entry. The left and right returns are symmetrical, each with a central gable flanked by projecting stacks with granite ashlar shafts and 3-light granite mullioned and transomed windows. The left return contains a square-headed moulded granite doorframe at its centre. The rear elevation has four gables to the main block with chimney shafts at angles to the crosswings, and a complete set of 3-light granite transomed mullioned windows. The north crosswing has a blocked doorway in its end wall with a timber lintel and two granite moulded doorframes to the pair of the main block, one with a cranked head and one with a cambered head.

The interior has been much altered with respect to partitions and ceilings, which have been completely replaced except in the north crosswing where chamfered stopped cross beams may be original. Moulded granite chimneypieces survive throughout the house including the second storey. A notable feature is the rear right ground floor fireplace in the north crosswing, which has a granite lintel supported on granite corbels. Original joinery is limited but includes a fine, modestly-scaled 17th-century stair with turned balusters (altered on the first floor), a panelled studded front door, and three ovolo-moulded stopped oak doorframes on the first floor. Granite internal doorframes separate the hall from the south crosswing and from a small rear room, though these are not quite opposed. A plaster overmantel above a blocked first-floor fireplace bears armorial bearings said to be those of the Davy family of Crediton. No stair now serves the second storey, which functions as attic space. A newel stair adjacent to one stack presumably originally provided roof access. The roof comprises collar rafter trusses with a variety of joints, some pegged and some nailed.

Canonteign was a Domesday Manor. Around 1125 it was given to the canons of St Mary du Val in Normandy and subsequently conveyed to the Prior and convent of Merton, Surrey. After the Reformation it was granted to Lord John Russell and then passed through several owners. The house was garrisoned for the king during the Civil War and taken by Fairfax in 1645. According to Lysons, it belonged to the Davy family in the 17th century. In 1812 Sir Edward Pellew, later Lord Viscount Exmouth, purchased the manor. The old house was reduced to a farm after 1828 when Exmouth built Canonteign House nearby. The building became semi-derelict before undergoing thorough restoration in the 1970s. It has group value with farmbuildings, a medieval cross, and mid-19th-century mining buildings nearby.