Buckland tout Saints Hotel

County House in grounds.  Late Cl7, substantially modified at the end of C19.  In the eighteenth century the house belonged  to John Henry Southcote, and from 1793 to William Clarke of Plymouth in whose family it remained through the middle of the nineteenth century.  In 1850 White’s Directory noted that it was ‘a large and handsome building with tasteful grounds’.  It became the Buckland Tout Saints Hotel in 1970.  It is handsome, of coursed stone, with two regular five-windowed fronts to the south and east.  Steep hipped slate and lead roof.  The house of c.1690 was a U-plan, with the roof behind a parapet, as shown in print of 1820.  In c.1892 the courtyard was filled in, to give a square plan with generous top-lit staircase, and the roof was rebuilt to a steep pitch (the chimneys spring rather oddly from near the corners of the hipped roof) and are carried on a wood modillion cornice; original C17 sashes replaced after 1906 with casements.  Two storeys, semi-basment and attics.  The dovecote c.60 metres north west of the hotel is possibly C16 or early C17.  The circular structure has no roof, is of coursed granite, and is about 4 m diameter.  The interior has a series of regular square pigeon openings in 1:5:5:5 rows separated by continuous slate string courses, and with a slate perch to each hole.  The dovecote probably pre-dates the present hotel.  The rubble retaining wall with niches and column, c.3.5 north of the hotel is C17 or C18, running from a return pier opposite the north-east corner of the Hotel the full length of the north side and beyond, to a return wall. It retains the higher garden level.  The wall contains 3 niches c.2.25 m high, 1.75 m wide and 1.25 m deep, to well coursed hemispherical top; each has a square ‘flue’ opening on either side at springing level. To the left is a half-column of early medieval form, in coursed stone to an octagonal base, cap concealed; this may be a fragment from an early manor or grange on the site. The square openings at the springing of the arches are not explained.

Buckland House listed Grade II*, Dovecote 60 m. NW and retaining wall with niches and column 3.5 m. N all listed Grade II.

Cherry & Pevsner:  The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 234
T Gray:  Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved Vol I, 2001: 62
Ray Freeman:  The History of Buckland Tout Saints, 1987
T. Gray: Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved Vol, I 2001:62