Simonsbath House Hotel

Simonsbath House Hotel, originally known as Simonsbath Lodge, is a house that has been converted into a hotel. It dates from the mid-17th century and has undergone extensive alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building was constructed for John Boevey. It features roughcast over rubble with a bitumen-covered slate roof, and a pyramid roof on the porch with a soffit board. There are roughcast stacks located between the first and second bays on the right, and between the second and third bays at the gable end of the original dwelling, which is to the right of the porch and set below the rebuilt gable end.

The internal layout has been significantly altered, originally consisting of three or four cells and a cross passage, with a full-height porch that has been extended to form a U-plan. The hotel is two storeys high and has a facade with two bays, three bays, one bay, and two bays. Most of the windows are 20th-century casements, with tripartite sash windows in the second bay on the left, a canted bay window with a twenty-four-pane sash window in the third bay, and a twelve-pane sash window above the porch on the first floor, with a three-light casement below. The tall porch features a 19th-century canted oriel window and a moulded 17th-century door, which has been partly renewed and is accessed by a flight of four slate steps, leading to a 20th-century inner door.

To the right, there is a gabled two-storey, two-bay wing, and to the left, a three-storey agricultural wing. Inside, there is a fireplace with a chamfered lintel and enriched stops to the right of the cross passage, dated 1654. The hall features imported 17th-century panelling and an overmantel from Weir Gifford in Bideford, North Devon, with painted coats of arms, as well as a coved ceiling in the porch room. This building was constructed by John Boevey, the Warden of Exmoor Forest, and was the only house in the Royal Forest until the early 19th century. Around 1819, it became the home of the Knight family and was later significantly altered by the Fortescues in the early 20th century.