Cock Rock

The first house and garden on this site were designed by Oliver Hill and built c. 1925..  The house burnt down in 1943, leaving a few remnants around a tall stone chimney and a separate thatched pump house. These still stand between the parking area and the sand dunes, where a Sun Bathing Garden is buried. A new house was built in 1953, also designed by Oliver Hill and slightly SW of the first one. Pevsner wrote‘Intended to be in the spirit of a Devon farmhouse, hence the thatched roofs and prominent stone chimneys…. The effect is more of a cottage orne…. Low mullioned windows in the Voysey tradition.’   A series of linked walled gardens surround the house.  Each has a distinct design and function, and appear to be largely unchanged: Pergola Garden between first and second house sites; sunken Wind’s Garden (south) and Secret Garden with thatched summer-house (north) between the new house and Gardener’s Cottage and separated by the Glass Walk; Orchard and hedged Vegetable garden; ‘Rose garden’ behind zigzag wall on south edge of parking area. The drive is lined with shrubs and runs beside the eastern boundary but with a small walled ‘stock’ garden in the SE corner of the site. The house is now a holiday home but still owned by keen gardeners, who have added a new Courtyard garden adjacent to glass doors on sheltered south side of house, by the new kitchen and have retained the essential character of the garden.

Cherry & Pevsner:  The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 110, 302