Description

SX 88 SE CHUDLEIGH
Harcombe House including steps at
1515/1/14 the rear

GV II

Large house, built in 1912 for Edward Chaning Wills, Bart, and his wife, "with the help of A.F. Woodman of Exeter, Builder and L.A. Lucas of Exeter, Architect"
(datestone). Some internal modifications of the 1980s for conversion to fire service convalescent home. Local grey limestone rubble with Ham Hill dressings, moulded brick dressings to the service wing and subsidiary rooms; slate roofs; 7 stone rubble stacks with Ham Hill coping. The right hand end of the house has a girder and concrete construction to the first floor.
Eccentric mixture of Jacobean style (coped gables, mullioned windows) and Vernacular Revival (variety of roof designs). L plan, the main range facing south with a rear left service wing at right angles to the main range. The principal entrance is right of centre on the south front with an entrance hall with the main stair in a gabled wing to the rear of the hall. To the left of the entrance hall a service corridor behind the principal rooms gives access to the rear left service wing; a service courtyard at the left end gives access to a detached subsidiary service block (separately listed). 3 principal ground floor rooms: 2 to the left of the entrance hall, 1 to the right. Late C20 modifications have involved some re-partitioning of the first floor rooms, the ground floor left room and the conversion of the principal centre room to a bar.
2 storeys. Asymmetrical 8 bay front with 2 coped gables to the front to left and right of centre on either side of a 2-storey castellated bay to the left and a projecting single-storey Ham Hill porch to the right which has a parapet rising as a pediment above a Tudor arched moulded outer doorway. The gabled bay to the right of the porch has a single-storey canted bay with transomed mullioned windows and an ogee-headed doorway in the centre. Mullioned windows throughout, of 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 lights, the first floor window in the gabled bays and the attic window in the right hand bay all with lead tent roofs. A first floor bow window above the porch has a peaked slate roof. At the left end of the south elevation a single-storey projecting bay with ogee-headed windows on the south and east sides is buttressed and decorated with carved stone reliefs. A timber verandah with a glazed roof runs between this bay and the porch, with segmental arched openings on posts.
The stair wing on the rear elevation has a 2 span roof, 1 span half-hipped to the rear, the second span with the eaves swept down to first floor level and a 4-light mullioned and transomed stair window. The west elevation (service wing) has 2 gables to the west and mullioned windows with Ham Hill lintels and moulded brick mullions.
Stone gateposts with ball finials at the left end of the main range lead into the service yard.
Interior Largely intact, the interior features unexpectedly modest. The entrance hall has a triple stone arch at the rear, the left hand arch giving access to the service corridor, the centre arch to the stair which has stick balusters and a timber arcade to the top landing with shallow arches supported on reeded timber piers with Ionic capitals. Other features of interest include stone chimneypieces, original doors and, more or less throughout the house, decorated plaster cornices, with a variety of scallop shell and foliage designs.
Edward Wills, who was fond of hunting, is said to have had his study adjacent to the gun room at the left end of the main range where the cornices are decorated with rabbits and pheasants.
Semi-circular steps at the rear of the house formerly gave access to a terraced
garden.
An imposing house of 1912, very complete externally and with most of its interior features intact.

Listing NGR: SX8888581765

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26389400

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)