The Abbots

Details

COMBE RALEIGH COMBE RALEIGH SY 10 SE

6/127 The Abbots

GV II

House. Late C18 with late C19/early C20 alterations. According to Polwhele it was built in 1790 by the Reverend Herman Drewe. Whitewashed and rendered, probably stone rubble; bitumen-painted 2-span slate roof, gabled at ends; left end stack with a dismantled shaft, rear left lateral stack with a dismantled shaft, right end stack. Plan: double depth plan, 2 rooms wide with a wide entrance hall, the stair rising from the hall at rear left. The rear left room is a morning room or dining room, rear right service rooms, the kitchen was formerly in a service wing adjoining at the right end and set back: this has been altered and converted to a separate house. Exterior: 2 storeys and attic. Symmetrical 3 bay front with a central open timber porch on posts with a moulded cornice, recessed half-glazed front door with panelled reveals. C18 or early C19 first floor sash windows: tripartite timber sashes to left and right. The ground floor windows are probably late C19 or early C20 bay windows with tent roofs, glazed with transomed casements with small panes above the transom. The left return has a similar canted bay to the ground floor, a 12-pane C18 or early C19 sash and a pair of C18 or early C19 2-light small-pane casements to the attic, similar attic windows on right return. The rear elevation has 3 C18 casements with square leaded panes: 2 on the first floor, one on the ground floor; one first floor 12-pane late C18 or C19 timber sash and a C20 back door. Interior: Both the principal rooms to the front have plaster cornices, one decorated; elaborate chimney-pieces said to have been imported fran Venice in the C20; deep skirting boards and other original joinery. The stair is rather old-fashioned for 1790 but fine, with an open string, slender turned balusters, a flat-topped ramped handrail and a dado of fielded panelling. A flag floor survives to the rear of the entrance hall and in the axial passage that formerly lead to the kitchen. Herman Drewe of the Drewe family of Grange, Broadhembury, was Rector of Wooton Fitzpaine, an estate which his mother brought to the Drewe family and perpetual curate of Sheldon as well as Rector of Combe Raleigh. An attractive villa, at one time the centre of the Combe Raleigh Estate.

Listing NGR: ST1597702447

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

87128

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Polwhele, R, History of Devonshire, (1793)

End of official list entry

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