- Parkland
- C18
The early C18 house was demolished in the 1920s. The Belvedere (1788), with some of its original planting, was recently (1996) restored. In 1803 Haldon was described as ‘standing in an extensive, which is decorated with some stately clumps of trees, and sheltered behind by some flourishing and wide extending plantations’. In 1822 Lysons wrote ‘the plantations are upon an extensive scale, several hundred acres having been enclosed for that purpose’. Stockdale described it as ‘a very handsome spacious mansion delightfully situated on an eminence & sheltered by extensive woody plantations’ while White (1850) noted that it was ‘a large and handsome stuccoed mansion, in a finely wooded park, on a commanding eminence, upon the summit of which are a number of barrows or tumuli, in which urns and Roman coins have been found …. The ornamental grounds are extensive, and the plantations which crown the summits of the hills cover many acres’. Lawrence Castle, a belvedere, built as a memorial to Major-General Stringer Lawrence, was restored in 1996 by the Devon Historic Buildings Trust and received a Civic Trust Award. The Belvedere is a local landmark and can be seen from many viewponts from Exeter, the Exe Valley and from the south of the Haldon Hills.
Lord Haldon Hotel wall and entrance arch to former stable yard listed Grade II.
Lawrence Castle listed Grade II*.
Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 513,514 T Gray: The Garden History of Devon, 1995: 116-18 T Gray: Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved Vol I, 2001: 148-53
