- C17
The large and imposing seat of the Parker family from the late C16 until the late C18when they moved to Saltram. Swete wrote in 1793 that ‘ this was a seat of the Parkers before they possessed Saltram and I have already hinted that Lady Catherine ….. by rebuilding the old mansion had intentions of reinstating it in the honour it once possessed of being the family residence’. In 1806 Polwhele noted that it ‘is in a ruinous state and inhabited only by the farmer who rents the estate. The park is extensive being about 300 acres and some parts of it abounds with remarkably fine oak trees. The situation is fine and bold and commands very extensive and beautiful views’. Lysons in 1822 wrote that ‘ the old mansion at Boringdon has been in part dilapidated, what remains is now occupied as a farmhouse, the old hall is still standing, adjoining to this old mansion is an extensive deer park’. The Royal licence to enclose the deer park was granted in 1699. White (1850) noted that it was ‘now a farmhouse, but its deer park is still preserved as an adjunct to the grounds of Saltram’. Stockdale described it as ‘a very interesting example of the Elizabethan style of architecture ….the mansion has become very dilapidated and let to a farmer’. It remained a farm into the twentieth century and was converted for use as an hotel in the mid 1980’s. There was a destructive fire in 1989. Now an hotel.
Boringdon House Grade I; outbuildings to north east and pair of gatepiers at entrance to south Grade II.
Cherry & Pevsner: The Buildings of England – Devon, 1989: 189
S Pugsley: Devon Gardens – An Historical Survey, 1994: 7,8,21
T Gray: The Garden History of Devon, 1995: 51
T Gray: Devon Country Houses and Gardens Engraved Vol I, 2001: 35
