Halsdon House

Halsdon House was the seat of the Furse family and later William Cory a poet.  It has an early Victorian front but the house behind is late seventeenth century. Rev. Shaw writing in 1788 “an elegant seat…built after the manner of Buckingham House and well surrounded with plantations”.  Sale particulars of 1903 mentioned the woodland walks through beautiful hanging woods along the Torridge valley and the pleasure grounds and gardens and timbered-park-like lands surrounding the house…old turf lawns, shrubbery’s and walls with rose arches and parterres, the whole being finely timbered with grand specimen conifers, fine growths of rhododendrons and flowering shrubs etc. including many rare specimens. The house is surrounded by woodland with walks/rides and has a pheasantry.

House, barn and coach house 15m. north, ’The Colt’s Stable’ 30m.south west, stables 35m. north east, dovecot 100m. north all listed Grade II

Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 338
T Gray: The Garden History of Devon, 1995: 118-19