Portledge Hotel

Country house, now an hotel.
Hidden away between wooded hills, close to the north coast. The seat of the Coffins from the CII and the Pine-Coffins from 1796. Now an hotel. A major house on a courtyard plan, with the usual complicated and intriguing history of piecemeal growthand alterations. A medieval house with C16 and C17 extensions and alterations; it was remodeled and extended in the early C19. Edmund Prideaux sketched the house and garden in 1716. Although the house and garden have been altered considerably, they are recognisable from the drawings. As was so often the case, a new entrance hail was built, completely changing the alignment of the house with its grounds. Prideaux showed that what was then the front garden was overlooked by the principal rooms of the house. The symmetrical beds are typical, but whether the effect was achieved with grass, low-lying plants or gravel, there is no record. Today, as the visitor approachesPortledge down the long drive, the elevation is little altered. But the enclosing wall has gone, and the drive sweeps on, through where the two beds were, to take the visitor to the grand new porch with its broad terrace in front. Railings now separate farmland from garden and grass has replaced the formal beds. A higher garden, alsograss, is surrounded by old walling, part cob, part stone. The parkland and walled kitchen garden survives.

House listed Grade II*, garden wall, granary, outbuildings and sundial all listed Grade II.

Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 690-91
T Gray: The Garden History of Devon,1995: 180-1
S.Pugsley: Devon Gardens – An Historical Survey, 1994: 129, 131-2