Palmer House is a grade II* listed Georgian residence built in 1752 in the town of Great Torrington, North Devon, England. It is notable as it retains many original features, including fine ornate plaster ceilings, marble and carved fireplaces, mahogany doors and a fine balustraded staircase.
Palmer House was built in 1752 by John Palmer, three times Mayor of Great Torrington and husband of Mary Reynolds, the author of Devonshire Dialogue and eldest sister of the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, both brought up at Plympton in South Devon, who painted the portraits of his Palmer nieces. The house remained in the ownership of the Palmer family until the 1890s.
Many famous people visited and stayed at the house. Sir Joshua Reynolds, brother-in-law of the builder, was a regular visitor. [1] [2] Dr. Samuel Johnson, a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, stayed at the house in 1762. Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, who had relatives in the area, is also known to have visited Palmer House.
The house is a three-storied building with the front facade made of red brick with Ionic pilasters. In the late 18th century a wing was added to the back of the house. A gazebo formerly in the rear garden is now located at Rosemoor Gardens in the same town. The first floor has a plaster ceiling with Palmer arms and Ionic mantel. The Palmer arms are represented in stained glass on the half-landing of the staircase. [2]
Nikolaus Pevsner called it the "best house in town". [3] It has also been described as "a most interesting example of brickwork subordinated to a Palladian treatment of pilasters and cornice". [4]
Lyme Park is a large estate south of Disley, Cheshire, England, managed by the National Trust and consisting of a mansion house surrounded by formal gardens and a deer park in the Peak District National Park. The house is the largest in Cheshire, and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
Henry Holland was an architect to the English nobility.
Arlington Court is a neoclassical style country house built 1820–23, situated in the parish of Arlington, next to the parish church of St James, 5+1⁄4 miles NE of Barnstaple, north Devon, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* registered on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Bishop Lloyd's House is at 41 Watergate Street, and 51/53 Watergate Row, Chester, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner considered it to be "perhaps the best" house in Chester.
Gamul House is at 52–58 Lower Bridge Street, Chester, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and contains the only medieval stone-built open hall to survive in Chester.
Poole Hall is a Regency mansion at Poole, near Nantwich in Cheshire, England. It dates from 1812 to 1817 and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. Nikolaus Pevsner considered the interior to be "exceptionally fine". The hall is a private residence and is not open to the public.
John Rolle Walter was Tory MP for Exeter in 1754–1776 and for Devon in 1776–1779. He held the honorary position of Town Recorder of Great Torrington in 1739–1779, due to his family's long-standing importance as the major local landowner.
Roborough is a village and civil parish 5.5 mi (8.9 km) from Great Torrington, in Devon, England. Situated topographically on the plateau between the Torridge and Taw Rivers, the parish covers 1,258 ha and contains a population of some 258 parishioners. It is surrounded by a pastoral landscape of rectangular fields, high hedges and scattered farmsteads.
St James' Church is in High Street, Whitehaven, Cumbria, England, at the crossing with the top of Queen Street. It stands in an elevated position overlooking the town. The church is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Calder, the archdeaconry of West Cumberland, and the diocese of Carlisle. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
Holcombe Rogus is a historic manor in the parish of Holcombe Rogus in Devon, England. The present grade I listed Tudor manor house known as Holcombe Court was built by Sir Roger Bluett c.1540 and was owned by the Bluett family until 1858 when the estate was sold to Rev. William Rayer. The house is immediately to the west of the parish church. The gardens and grounds are screened off from the public road at the south by a high wall in which is a tall and broad entrance archway which forms the start of the entrance drive.
Forde House, now known as Old Forde House, is a Grade I listed former manor house dating in back to c. 1550 in Newton Abbot, Devon, England. The building was substantially enlarged c. 1610 and is noted for its fine 17th-century wood-carving and plasterwork. Once the manor house of the parish of Wolborough, it is now absorbed into a suburb of Newton Abbot. The south front faces Torquay Road across the house's front lawn. The building was purchased in 1978 by Teignbridge District Council which then built itself a modern headquarters in the grounds which opened in 1987. The council offices now take the name Forde House, and the old mansion is known as Old Forde House.
Beam is an historic estate in the parish of Great Torrington, Devon, England. Beam House is situated about 1 1/2 miles north-west and downstream of that town, on the right-bank of the River Torridge. Both the Rolle Canal and the railway crossed the river nearby. It occupies a particularly beautiful setting, described by Lauder (1986) thus: "For lovers of rivers and woodland there can be few lovlier settings for a house than this. Steeply wooded banks shelter the valley and the house is situated on slightly higher ground above lush water meadows, almost completely surrounded by the Torridge" The estate was a subsidiary seat of the Rolle family, lords of the manor of Great Torrington, whose main seat was Stevenstone on the other (south) side of that town and therefore upstream from Beam. It was an outpost of the Royalists during the Civil War. Much of the estate is today owned by Baron Clinton, as heir to the Rolles, but it has had many occupants, including use by the army in both world wars and as a borstal. Tarka the Otter was born at Beam, by what the author Henry Williamson called the "Canal Bridge" and particularly favoured the River Torridge at Beam Weir. Thus the cycleway which crosses the river at Beam, formerly the railway line, was named the "Tarka Trail", due to its association with these and other haunts of the fictional animal. Today Beam is used as an adventure centre for young people.
Mary Palmer was a British author from Devon who wrote Devonshire Dialogue, once considered the "best piece of literature in the vernacular of Devon." She was the mother of painter Theophila Gwatkin and sister of the artists Sir Joshua Reynolds and Frances Reynolds and of the pamphleteer Elizabeth Johnson.
Merton is a village, ecclesiastical parish, former manor and civil parish administered by the local government district of Torridge, Devon, England. The parish, which lies about five miles south east of the town of Great Torrington, is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Little Torrington, Beaford, Dolton, Huish, Petrockstowe and Peters Marland. In 2001 its population was 331, down from the 507 residents it had in 1901. The eastern and northern boundaries of the parish follow the loops of the River Torridge and the other sides are defined by the River Mere. The village forms part of the electoral ward of Clinton. The population at the 2011 census was 1,537.
Cross is a historic estate in the parish and former manor of Little Torrington, Devon. The Georgian red-brick mansion house at Cross, re-built between 1744 and 1748 and classified as Grade II* listed in 1960, is a conspicuous sight from Castle Hill, Great Torrington, across the River Torridge valley. Cross House is especially notable as containing an ornate staircase salvaged in about 1720 from the demolished Stowe House, Kilkhampton in Cornwall, built circa 1680-5.
Bowden is an historic estate in Ashprington parish near Totnes in Devon, England. The present structure, known as "Bowden House", is a grade I listed building and is built in a range of styles, mainly English Baroque and Tudor, reflecting the range of periods it was built and edited over.
Haccombe with Combe is a civil parish in the Teignbridge local government district of Devon, England. The parish lies immediately to the east of the town of Newton Abbot, and south of the estuary of the River Teign. Across the estuary are the parishes of Kingsteignton and Bishopsteignton. The parish is bordered on the east by Stokeinteignhead and on the south by Coffinswell. Most of the southern boundary of the parish follows the minor ridge road that runs between the suburbs of Milber in Newton Abbot and Barton in Torquay and it bisects the Iron Age hill fort of Milber Down.
The Church of St Michael and All Angels is a Church of England parish church in Great Torrington, Devon. It has been a Grade II* listed building since 1951.
Webbery is an historic manor in the parish of Alverdiscott in North Devon, England.
Langton House or Langton Mansion located at 12, Welsh Back, Bristol, was a Jacobean house, built by John Langton, a merchant of Bristol who became mayor of the city in 1628. It is notable for its elaborate interiors. The house was demolished in 1906, but much of the internal fittings survive, mostly at New Place, a house in Hampshire designed by Edwin Lutyens.