Coleton Fishacre (23 min) 01803 752466
Arts and Crafts style house with elegant Art-Deco influenced interior, set amid gardens in a spectacular coastal setting. Oswald Peregrine Milne, a pupil of Sir Edwin Lutyens, designed the house and the architectural features of the garden for Rupert and Lady Dorothy D’Oyly Carte and it was completed in 1926. The elegant Art Deco influenced interior is furnished as a family house in the ‘spirit of the D’Oyly Cartes’ with original light fittings and the delightful Spencer Hoffman pictorial over-mantle picture in the library.
The garden lies in a Devon combe sloping to the cliff tops and the sea on the beautiful South Devon coast and is bordered by belts of Monterey pines and broad-leaved native trees. In the spring and early summer wild flowers abound amid the colourful display of rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas planted amongst the collection of tender and exotic plants which thrive in the subtropical climate and sheltered location. The formal terraces and walled garden framing the house provide summer-long interest with the unusual range of sun-loving tender plants cloaking the walls and borders.
Harbour House Exhibitions (26 min) 01548 854708
Harbour House the Arts and Yoga centre on the Promenade at the head of the Kingsbridge estuary (opposite the TIC). There are yoga, tai chi and meditation classes and a wide range of art activities: drawing, painting, life drawing, and children’s art club. The ground floor art gallery has regularly changing exhibitions. Complementing this is a vegetarian café on the first floor and peaceful gardens (well, not too peaceful at the moment)
Dartington Hall Estate (28 min) 01803 862367 Dartington Hall stands in over 1,000 acres of farm and deer parkland with many lovely walks for you to enjoy, through the woodlands, along the river Dart and in the magnificent Beatrix Farrand inspired gardens surrounding the Hall. The White Hart Restaurant located within the 14th Century medieval courtyard of Dartington Hall, occupies what were originally the kitchens of the magnificent fourteenth-century Dartington Hall. With a flagstone floor, limed oak settles, roughcast walls, historic photographs, and a real log fire, the White Hart Restaurant provides a warm, welcoming atmosphere at all times.
High Cross House Dartington (28 min) 01803 864114
In 1994 The Dartington Hall Trust commissioned John Winter and Associates to renovate High Cross House as a showcase for Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst's collection of paintings and ceramics (The Dartington Hall Trust Collection) and to be a home for the Trust's unique archival records. High Cross House is a superb example of an International Modernist style house of the 1930s, designed by Swiss-American architect Williams Lescaze. Leonard Elmhirst commissioned Lescaze to design the building as the home for William B. Curry, the first Headmaster of Dartington Hall School. True to Modernist ideals of a house as a 'machine for living in', all aspects of the house - including furniture and furnishings - were designed as an integrated whole.
Dartington Great Hall (28 min) 01803 862367
Included in the Hall/Courtyard buildings listing, the Great Hall forms part of the original manor house which was built in 1388 by John Holand, Earl of Huntingdon and Duke of Exeter, and half brother of Richard II. It is also listed as being on the site of a scheduled ancient monument (monument number 34872), the ruins and buried remains of the Great House at Dartington. The badge of Richard II and the Plantagenates - a white hart on a red rose - can be seen on the central boss in the roof of the porch. When they purchased the Dartington Hall estate in 1925 the Great Hall was in ruins, four walls without a roof. The Elmhirsts restored it for use as a performance space. Between 1926 and 1937 it was restored by William Weir for Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst.
Bradley Manor (47 min) 01626 354513
Bradley Manor, set in a valley of meadow and woodlands, is a superb example of medieval domestic architecture. Richard Yarde inherited the original 13th century building from his grandmother in the early 15th century. Most of the present building dates from around 1420 when Yarde set about altering and enlarging the house.
The chapel was included in this remodelling and these remains, together with the Great Hall, Solar and porch. The L-shaped manor house was built of roughcast local limestone lime washed white. The doorways and fireplaces were constructed of granite and the roof was made of slate. In 1495 the gabled front was added. The gatehouse and some lesser buildings have been destroyed but apart from 19th century castellation the building remains mainly as it was in the 15th century. The interior of the house is still medieval in plan.
The hall is set to one side of the screens passage which runs across the house. Many of the windows date from the 15th and 16th century. There is some contemporary carving in wood and stone and painted Tudor decoration. In an upstairs room is an example of 17th century plasterwork. The projecting chapel has a splendid Perpendicular window and its wooden wagon roof has some interesting carved bosses.
Bradley Manor remained the property of the Yarde family until it was sold it in 1750. Over the years the house changed hands several times. As its style of architecture became out of fashion it was converted into a farmhouse and poultry was kept in the chapel. In 1909 the manor house was rescued by a descendant of the Yarde family. He restored the building and in 1938 it was given to the National Trust by his daughter.
Saltram House (55 min) 01752 333503
A remarkable survival of a George II country house, complete with many original contents. The stunning state rooms were designed by Robert Adam and contain exceptional furniture by Chippendale and family portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds. There is plasterwork of the highest quality throughout, as well as original Chinese wallpaper in several rooms. The Great Kitchen is possibly England’s most complete survival of a large country house kitchen, fully fitted out with its original copper utensils, early kitchen gadgets and great spit. The delightful gardens, set in undulating parkland and particularly fine in spring, contain a wealth of follies, an early 18th-century ‘Melancholy Walk’ and fine specimen trees and shrubs. Saltram was one of the locations for the film of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility.
Yarde Medieval Farmhouse Marlborough 01548 842367
Old farmhouse and animals, low key attraction
Prehistoric Settlement, Copton, Dartmouth 01803 712452
Experience life of prehistoric man and examine the exhibits of pottery and artefacts found locally.
Blackdown Rings Iron Age Hill Fort Loddiswell
Devon Museums
English Heritage
Please note: The information on this web site is intended as a guide only. We cannot accept responsibility for any inaccurate, misleading or incomplete information about any Business and its facilities or services.
