Summary
A mid- to late-C18 Picturesque park and Sublime pleasure ground, incorporating probable earlier features including an avenue and fishpond. The Picturesque layout is likely to have accompanied the rebuilding of the earlier house on the site in the C18. The grounds were further developed in the early C19 in similar Picturesque character, possibly with some design influence from G S Repton, who remodelled the house in the 1820s, the landscape reaching its zenith by 1842.
Reasons for Designation
The western part of Peamore Park is registered at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date and rarity: as a landscape laid out in phases from around the mid-C18 to early to mid-C19, where the general form and framework, and thus its character, remain legible;
* Representativity: a good example of a Picturesque country house landscape which utilises natural topography to great effect and includes the sublime pleasure ground of The Rock;
* Group value: with the Grade II listed Peamore House, forming the gothic centrepiece to the principal public view from the east, as well as the unlisted lodge and keeper’s cottage, and the arch, steps and walls at The Rock;
* Documentation: several primary accounts, sketches and paintings of the landscape from the late-C18 and early-C19 offer an insight into the contemporary experience of the landscape.
History
Peamore is recorded in the Domesday book, and developed as a country estate over the following centuries. No documentary evidence of a designed landscape before the C18 has been discovered, but it is likely that some designed landscape existed since at least the C16 or C17, when the estate was owned by the Tothills, a prominent local family who included a Sheriff of Devon and a Recorder of Exeter. A house was constructed close to the site of the present Peamore House during this period. It is unclear whether or not any of the fabric of the earlier house was incorporated, or whether anything of a designed landscape earlier than the early to mid-C18 was retained. A geometric landscape may have existed by the mid-C18, related to the early Peamore House. There are indications in some possible relict features including the lime avenue running north-west from the house, continuing in a woodland belt to the south-east of The Rock (the quarry garden), and the shape of the fishpond to the east, which is aligned on the east front of the house. The first known map, dating from 1765 is schematic and lacks detail, so does not confirm the shape of the landscape at this date.
It appears that the existing, naturalistic landscape was begun in the mid- to late C18, while the then owners, the Hippisley-Coxe family, were also occupied in rebuilding their house at Ston Easton in Somerset. John Hippisley-Coxe married Mary Northleigh, joint heiress of Peamore, in 1739, and the first phase of the landscape was probably completed between then and the time of his death in 1769. The layout was likely influenced by the creation of the Exeter Turnpike road in the mid-1750s. Although John probably spent much of his time on Ston Easton, Mary remained in residence and a number of their children were born at Peamore. Mary died there in 1771.
By 1776, an arched footbridge had been built to the south with a deliberately ruined appearance. This was aligned with the avenue to the north of the house, and forms the main entrance to the quarry garden known as The Rock. The arched bridge carried the circuit path around The Rock, over the entrance path from the house. To the west, the path led straight to a viewing terrace within the wooded pleasure ground. To the east of the bridge, steps led west up and over the bridge to further steps beyond the bridge, flanked by stone parapets, leading to a group of buildings including an arched stone doorway into the gardens beyond.
Under John's successors, his sons Richard and Henry, Peamore was let out. By 1793 the Estate Map shows that the park extended north and west, surrounded by belts enclosing scattered specimens and avenues; the quarry was laid out with paths, and a pleasure ground to the east; a drive ran from the road south-east of the house. In 1793 Peamore Park comprised 163 acres and by 1797 a survey showed that in addition to the mansion house and outhouses there were a “best garden, courtledges green, grove and bowling green, mount.” The locations of these features are unclear, but the bowling green was perhaps on level ground immediately south of the house. Some of this work, which is characteristic of the fashionable landscaping of the period, may have been carried out for Samuel Strode who was tenant between 1789 and 1795.
Several features in the landscape, and a sense of how the landscape was experienced, are depicted in a succession of paintings by Francis Towne (1739-1816); John White Abbott (1763-1851); and William Payne (1760 -1830), the earliest from 1776. Contemporary written descriptions indicate that Peamore was appreciated as a landscape of note: “it is one of the most pleasant seats in the neighbourhood of Exeter... The venerable forest trees, particularly beech in many of the grounds and the park so beautiful in itself from its little undulating hills and dales, and so delightful from its command of prospect, at one time the most variegated and extensive, at another the most distinct and picturesque. Such charms are, doubtless, sufficient to recommend Peamore to the observation of every traveller of taste.” (Richard Polwhele, 1793).
The Picturesque qualities of the resulting landscape were further painted in the 1790s and early C19, including in Payne’s undated painting of the quarry, Towne’s paintings of the fishpond, and the 1796 Abbott painting of the quarry entrance with two figures.
In 1797 Samuel Kekewich (1765-1822) bought the Peamore estate for £13,000, the site later inherited by his son Samuel Trehawke Kekewich (1796-1873) in 1822. The next detailed and accurate document depicting the layout is the tithe map of 1842. This shows a considerably developed landscape, and it is unclear for some of the alterations whether they were for the father (before 1822) or son. George Stanley Repton (1786-1858), architect son of Humphry Repton, the foremost landscaper of the 1790s to the 1810s, was commissioned to remodel Peamore House in about 1825. It is likely that the son commissioned him, as the proposals for the house and lodge are dated 1825. However, there are also undated and unsigned drawings that might relate to work in the 1790s, whilst the property was still in Hippisley-Coxe ownership, potentially attributable to John Adey Repton. The entrance front was moved from the east to the north elevation, and the east elevation became the most important, as a landmark from the road. The single-storey lodge at the entrance to the new main drive is similar to Repton's proposal.
Following these works and associated landscaping, the 1842 tithe map shows the Picturesque landscape at its height. Changes since 1793 included the enlargement of the park, and the replacement of the south-east drive with the present drive to the north-east. A summerhouse was built on the west side of the quarry, just below the rock face, and possibly another in more distant Shillingford Plantation at the south-east edge overlooking the house and extensive views eastwards. A walk led through the existing plantation south and east of the fishpond. Shillingford Plantation was extended and laid out with a series of walks and drives. The north drive was laid out through Peamore Wood.
After this, few changes were made. In the mid- to later C19, as shown on the 1888 Ordnance Survey map, changes included a new lawn in the bowl north of and below The Rock terrace and west of the house; a maze in the belt leading south of the rock reached by a new path from The Rock which then led on to Maud’s Bridge linking the west and east parks over the Turnpike road; and a new keeper’s cottage at the far end of the existing north drive. These works were either for Samuel Trehawke Kekewich before he died or Trehawke Kekewich after he inherited in 1873. The latter had a daughter named Anne Maud, and the footbridge may have been named for her.
After the Kekewich family sold the estate in 1948, the house and outbuildings, after a period as a hotel, were in the early 1960s converted to several residences when gardens were created adjacent to the south and east fronts on the former lawns. A house was built on the lawn to the west of the outbuildings and the carpenter’s house was enlarged. The maze was lost, though contrary to one report, the archway, bridge, steps and terrace walls within the Rock survive. The former Turnpike road was made into a dual carriageway, taking up a strip of the adjacent West Park, and Maud's Bridge was removed. The front lawn in the West Park below the east front of the house seems to have been regraded and slightly raised, altering designed views from the lower level of the east front. Trees have grown since then, east of the dual carriage way in Peamore Farm garden, and to the west of the fish pond, obscuring these views. Houses have been built by the fishpond and in the corner of the kitchen garden, where the rest of the area became a domestic garden. The wider landscape was sold into divided ownership. The site remains in multiple private ownership (2024).
Details
A mid- to late-C18 Picturesque park and sublime pleasure ground, incorporating probable earlier features including an avenue and woodlands. The Picturesque layout is likely to have accompanied the rebuilding of the earlier house on the site in the C18. The grounds were further developed in the early C19 in similar Picturesque character, possibly with some design influence from G S Repton, who remodelled the house in the 1820s, the landscape reaching its zenith by 1842.
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING: Peamore House lies 2.75 miles south-west of Exeter Cathedral and 0.75 mile east of Shillingford St George, on rolling hills above and to the west of the River Exe estuary. The registered area is bounded to the north-west by a tributary of the Matford Brook, to the south by a public bridleway leading into a lane linking Shillingford to the west and Exminster to the east, and to the east by the A379, beyond which the designed landscape extended.
The A30 passes close to the north and east, and the M5/A38 to the south and east, the two intersecting at a large junction just beyond the south-east corner of the site. The site is, and has been since at least the 1750s, bisected by the A379 Exeter to Plymouth road, which was turnpiked in 1753, with the park immediately surrounding the house to the west. The detached park to the east, not included within the registered area, included the fishpond, home farm, kitchen gardens and plantations which frame the easterly backdrop from the house. The designed views from the house, across the road to the fish pond, have been lost to later planting.
Long views extend from the peripheral high ground northwards towards Exeter below, enjoying views of the cathedral, and the north-east to distant ridges including the Blackdown Hills, and over the Exe Estuary.
A conspicuous knoll of a particular conical shape which was noted in 1792 by John Swete as formerly part of the estate of Mr Coxe of Peamore is still recognisable as a hill to the north in Matford, where it remains a prominent feature in views from the higher ground of the estate.
Shillingford Wood lies south-west of Shillingford Plantation and contains a 650m-long drive called Shillingford Lane through the narrow, serpentine ribbon of trees at this location. This connects at 800m south-west of the house with a serpentine drive through Shillingford Plantation. It originated in the ownership of another landowner but forms part of the Picturesque character of the setting.
The rest of the immediate setting is largely agricultural land, formerly estate land. A site of 13ha to the north of the east park is a scheduled monument, which includes a series of enclosures of late Iron Age or Romano-British origin, with an earlier ring-ditch.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES: the principal approach to Peamore House is off the A379, 270m north-east of the house. Peamore Lodge beside the entrance is single storey and gabled, built of local red breccia stone, sometime between 1793 and 1839. Tudor style, with heraldic decoration, it can be attributed to George Stanley Repton, who was working on Peamore House in the 1820s, as it is very similar to his design in the RIBA Collection, dated 1825. A pair of tall, rustic gate piers flank the entrance, one of which has been rebuilt. From here, the drive curves gently to the south-west through the park, with views of the house below, and flanking park slopes populated with venerable specimen trees. It arrives at the north-east corner of the house and leads to the main entrance on the north front.
A further drive enters the park from the north, from Keeper’s Cottage, which was built in the mid-late C19, standing 600m north of the house on the north side of Peamore Wood, off the A379. From here the drive, much of which existed by 1839, snakes south-west through Peamore Wood and across the West Park to a 150m long straight lime avenue which is aligned on the former service yard, west of the house.
The late-C18 main drive entered off the A379, about 190m east-south-east of the house, and ran approximately westwards towards The Rock pleasure ground, before turning north to the then-main entrance on the east-front of the house. The drive was abandoned when the house was remodelled in the early C19 and the current drive with its attendant lodge and gateway were constructed, leading to the new main entrance associated with G S Repton’s work.
PRINCIPAL BUILDINGS: Peamore House (listed Grade II) stands on the eastern side of the park, west of the A379. The entrance front is to the north, though the former entrance front, and the more impressive façade, is to the east, overlooking the park and the wider landscape, across the A379 and towards the fish pond. Former service ranges to the west largely removed. Peamore House is an 1820s Tudor Gothic remodelling and extension by G S Repton of an earlier house. It has parapets, gables and hoodmoulds over the sash windows, and is finished in whitewashed stucco over local red brecchia stone, under slate roofs, with tall, ornamental brick chimneys. These are likely to have been the model for the distinctive chimneys which are shown on plans for the lodge, and which are prominent features of Peamore Farmhouse, in the East Park. The house is on a U-plan, the north range double depth, with east and west wings at right angles. The principal rooms are in the north and east ranges, with views over the park. The symmetrical eight-bay east elevation, which is visible from the road, is the most complete, with a moulded cornice below the parapet which rises as four gabled bays, slightly broken forward, with tall pinnacles and armorial bearings in the gables. The north elevation is asymmetrical, with a projecting gabled bay with a pinnacle to the left and a gabled bay to the right. The house was divided into four residential units in the 1960s.
G S Repton's plan for the east wing in the RIBA Collection shows a shorter and more elaborate version of the present large range (running north-south) with canted bays at the centre of each of the long east and short south fronts, indicating that there were key panoramic views in these directions. The garden front is to the south, facing the site of former lawns, now domestic gardens, and the wooded slopes of The Rock beyond. The west and east wings flank a small, enclosed garden, formerly laid out with a geometric pattern of beds in the early C19.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS: the gardens and pleasure grounds lie south and west of the house. The northernmost area, which lies closest to the house, is divided into several mid-C20 gardens, with recent hedges and fences. This area was formerly laid to lawn, with a wooded shrubbery to the west, now partly built over.
The main feature since the C18 has been The Rock, a picturesque pleasure ground, which lies 50m south of the house. This former quarry, covering about 1.2 hectares, measures about 150m west to east and 110m north to south, and is entered from the south of the house along a path through a deliberately-ruined stone arched bridge, depicted in Towne’s watercolour of 1776. A garden is laid out beneath a dramatic, L-shaped quarry face, about 20m high, which encloses the west and south sides. The east-facing wall is about 60m long and the north-facing side is about 90m long.
The feature is shown on the 1793 estate map with planting within the southern part of the quarry. The high, quarried cliffs, topped by tall trees and partially obscured by laurel planting were described in 1799 by Swete, indicating that the initial planting of about 50 years earlier had been allowed to overgrow somewhat. The interior layout of the quarry was extended and amended, possibly in two phases, during the early C19, resulting in the garden depicted in detail on the tithe map of 1842, which shows both the sheer quarry faces, and the carefully-planted Gardenesque layout on the sloping ground below, which the quarry faces enclose.
Within this sublime crag, the ground slopes northwards from a broad open area at its base, to the terrace which runs along the north edge, and the entrance. The remainder of the area is laid out with a network of paths. It is understood that the south-west corner includes a bowl or depression containing a rocky area which might have been designed as a fernery. The circuit path above links to the terrace, fronting a north-facing former garden area which had views over the house to the parkland beyond. The garden terrace in the north-west section is defined on its northern edge by a low retaining wall built of local stone. In the C19 this was a densely-planted garden, but is now abandoned. It included a circular summer house, since lost. Some remnants of the original ornamental planting may survive below the existing canopy of ornamental and self-sown trees.
From the south-east corner of the circuit path, a secondary path formerly ran south-eastwards, through the wooded area where the late-C19 maze had been constructed, meeting the bridleway which forms the southern boundary of the park. The path then extended to the east, over the footbridge across the A379, and into the wider parkland to the east, towards the fishpond. The path, maze and Maud’s Bridge are all now lost, and the planting through which the path passed reduced. Some ornamental planting in the area of the former maze is extant.
THE PARK: the parkland associated with Peamore House is divided into two areas by the A379, creating the West Park and the East Park; the latter is not included within the registered area.
The West Park surrounds the north, west and south-east sides of the house and pleasure grounds with rolling slopes. To the east of the house, the site of the Front Lawn (named in the tithe apportionment), the land falls away, giving views of the farmhouse with chimneys echoing those of Peamore House, and towards the fish pond in the East Park, since obscured by planting. The Front Lawn terminates at its eastern end at the A379; the roadside boundary is marked by typical iron park railings, allowing clear views of the east front of Peamore House.
To the south, the view is framed by the rising ground of the park, with a belt of trees marking the line of the former drive, beyond which the ground continues to rise towards a further belt which follows the southern boundary of the park. This sweep of rising ground frames the views towards the house from the road and drive. The slope which is topped by the main drive frames the view to the east.
The parkland to either side of the main drive includes a number of mature specimen trees. The parkland is bisected by the lime avenue, which runs north-westwards for about 150m, and by Peamore Wood to the north. The avenue appears to have related to the earlier house on the site, given that it aligns a little to the west of the present Peamore House, and is shown on the 1793 map as part of an earlier, partially-surviving geometric planting scheme, perhaps originally serving to frame a drive to the earlier house. The avenue was later adopted to frame the southern section of the drive through Peamore Wood, shown on the tithe map of 1842.
To the west of the avenue is a large, open paddock, named on the tithe apportionment as the North Lawn; this was formerly treed, and has a distinct, curved north and west boundary which is planted with trees including ancient sweet chestnuts, the plantation running up and over a ridge on the north side, which bounds the views from the south. At the southern end of this arc various ornamental paths through Shillingford Plantation converge. The most elevated point in the park lies to the south-west, which has distant views to Exeter, and towards Somerset in the north east. Further distant views were available from The Rock, from where a description of the park in 1878 indicates that views of the follies of Haldon Belvedere and Powderham Belvedere were possible.
The layout of the West Park survives close to its mid-C19 design, with the inclusion of much of the mid- to late-C18 work. The developments in the park’s layout since the first detailed mapping in 1793 is likely to have been influenced first by the creation of the turnpike road, now the A379, in the 1750s; and later by the modifications to the road, house and pleasure grounds, in the 1820s, when the new main drive and lodge were constructed, the old drive removed, and the farm was relocated to the opposite side of the amended road, in the East Park, all shown in their current locations on the 1842 tithe map. One late development in the park was the construction in the mid- to late-C19 of the Keeper’s Cottage at the head of the north drive through Peamore Wood.
Just north of Peamore Lodge, on the west side of the A379 in a walled enclosure is a First World War memorial (listed Grade II). This was first erected at the instigation of Trehawke Kekewich, on the verge at the roadside, south of Peamore Lodge. The memorial was moved to its present position in 1965 during alterations to the road junction with the A379.
