Hembury Fort House

A Gentleman’s villa, formerly known as Cockenhays, now a retirement home.  On a magnificent hilltop site.  Early C19 possibly with a C18 core with C20 alterations.  Purchased  by Vice Admiral Samuel Graves in about 1750.  He repaired and enlarged it.  In 1828 it was advertised as having ‘an extensive and well-timbered lawn and pleasure ground’.  It was then unoccupied.  Eight years later the sale particulars claimed that the house was ‘a capital mansion house ... fit for the residence of a family of distinction with offices of every description; an extensive and well-timbered lawn and pleasure grounds’.  There were also kitchen gardens ‘well stocked with fruit trees’.  White (1850) noted that it was the seat of William Porter and was ‘on a commanding eminence, near the ancient entrenchment of that name’ while Stock­dale noted that it was ‘an interesting spacious mansion, not only commands a remarkably beautiful prospect but forms a very striking feature in this part of the country’.

Hembury Fort House is listed Grade II

Cherry & Pevsner:  The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 221
T Gray:  The Garden History of Devon, 1995: 123