- Gardens
- Deer Park
Bickleigh ‘Castle’, located on the west bank of the River Exe, was a moated and fortified manor house, of which the gatehouse range is the chief remnant today. Bickleigh came to the Courtenays of Powderham, who used it as an estate for younger sons and it was they who rebuilt the Norman house early in the 15th century. The Carews acquired Bickleigh about 1510 but the house degenerated into a farmhouse. It was rescued after the sale of Carew properties in 1922, and restored to its present form. The old moat is now mostly filled in, with the remaining stretch presented as a water garden feature. The small ornamental gardens comprise the moat, lawns, shrubs and, across the lane, a tiny cob-walled and thatched chapel, surrounded by lawn and flower beds. Behind the ‘Castle’, the western slopes of the Exe valley are wooded and a Deer Park is shown on Ordnance Survey maps.
Bickleigh Castle Gatehouse listed Grade I.
North range, garden walls, gate piers, stable block listed Grade II.
Chapel, including walls to the enclosure to the south and west, listed Grade II*.
Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 170-2
S Pugsley: Devon Gardens – An Historical Survey, 1994: 74, 175
T Gray: The Garden History of Devon, 1995: 43
WG Hoskins: Devon, 1992: 275, 334
T Gray: Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved Vol I, 2001: 15-17
Country Life vol. LXXV pp416,412
