Description

PAIGNTON

SX8861 TORQUAY ROAD
1947-1/4/111 (West side)
10/01/75 Former Riding School and Banqueting
House at Oldway Mansion
(Formerly Listed as:
TORQUAY ROAD
Former Riding School &
Stables.....including former
Conservatory Winter Garden)

GV II

Riding school and banqueting hall, riding school now used as
offices; banqueting hall as workshops. 1874 by GS Bridgman for
Isaac Singer (qv Oldway Mansion).
MATERIALS: Flemish bond red brick on local grey limestone
footings; slate roof with stacks with grouped red brick shafts
with stone bands and corbelled caps with stone pots.
PLAN: Riding school and exercise pavilion, round on plan, with
remnant of glass-house at west side. This was designed with an
open central area with stabling, harness rooms etc round the
outside. It had a movable wood floor which was put in when it
was used for entertaining. At the NW a banqueting hall with
end towers is now used as a workshop block.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. The riding school has moulded toothed
brick cornices both to the main block and the lantern, the
main block has a frieze of decorative tiles below the cornice
on the main block. The lantern has a peaked slate roof with
lucarnes, a weathervane and clerestorey windows.
Rotunda has massive gabled porch on S side, facing Oldway
Mansion, with a full-height round-headed doorway with triple
keyblock with incised decoration and left and right
semi-circular cheeks.
Massive 2-leaf door with studs, chamfered stopped rails and a
wicket door. The left-hand cheek retains a barleysugar iron
column, a remnant of the massive palm house which once stood
between the house and the pavilion.
The pavilion has 2-light ground-floor high-transomed windows
with a decorative tile panel above, below the sill of the
first-floor windows which are mostly 2-light. One bay from the
porch to each side the first-floor window is shouldered with a
coped gabled dormer with kneelers and a semi-circular fanlight
over.
Remains of glasshouses between pavilion and workshops block
preserve barley-sugar columns and pretty cast-iron arches with
foliage decoration.
The banqueting hall is also brick with a pair of vertical
boarded doors on the S side and a ventilator on the ridge.
At either end of the yard to the N of the banqueting hall,
3-storey towers, square on plan, face into the yard, the
right-hand tower with a curved conical slate roof. Towers have
3-bay fronts with and tall 2-light windows.
INTERIOR: Not inspected but may retain features of interest.
HISTORY: Isaac Singer, who developed the sewing machine, was
noted for his hospitality and hosted children's parties in the
riding school. Photographs showing the pavilion, the
banqueting hall and the palm house are on display inside
Oldway Mansion, along with Bridgman's plans and elevations
which were published in The Architect in 1874.

Listing NGR: SX8878461591

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q33008706

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

• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014