Old Shute House
Old Shute House (also Shute Barton called) is a manor house in Devon . The property, located southwest of Axminster , is an important example of an unfortified medieval mansion and is protected as a Grade I cultural monument . The New Shute House, dating from the late 18th century, is located about 600 m to the southeast .
history
From the Middle Ages to the 16th century
The mansion was built by William Bonville around 1380 . Thomas Gray, 1st Marquess of Dorset acquired the property in 1474 through his marriage to heiress Cecily Bonneville . He and his wife had major renovations and extensions carried out at the end of the 15th century. Grey's grandson Henry Gray, 1st Duke of Suffolk , was executed in 1554 after the overthrow of his daughter Jane Gray , Queen of the Nine Days. His property, including Shute House, was confiscated by the Crown. The crown first gave the house to the royal secretary William Petre , who eventually sold it to William Pole of Colyton . Pole made the house his residence. Either under him from 1560 or under his son of the same name Sir William Pole after 1587, the gatehouse was built and further modifications were made to the manor house.
Dilapidation and rebuilding of the New Shute House
Shute remained in the possession of the Pole family, who often used the nearby Colcombe Castle as their main residence. The manor house was badly damaged during the English Civil War . In the 18th century the property was neglected and fell into disrepair. Finally, John de la Pole, 6th Baronet , who had inherited the property when he was three years old in 1760, decided to build a new mansion. In order to gain a line of sight from the new manor house to the old gatehouse and on to the newly created landscape park , in 1785 he had a large part of the old manor house torn down, which was aligned axially with the gatehouse. Some of the stones from the old mansion were rebuilt in the new house. The remaining portion of the old mansion was leased as a farmhouse and has since been known as Shute Barton . William Pole, 9th Baronet , had the two outbuildings of the gatehouse torn down around 1870 and replaced with two new, two-story pavilions.
The property from the 20th century
After the death of Frederick de la Pole, 13th Baronet , John Pole-Carew inherited the property in 1926 . Due to inheritance, he changed his name to Carew Pole , but kept his previous residence at Antony House . Shute Barton continued to be leased until it was no longer inhabited after World War II. John Carew Pole then had the old mansion renovated and handed it over to the National Trust in 1959 on the condition that some relatives were given lifelong residence. Shute Barton was inhabited by these until 2010, after which it was extensively restored by the National Trust. Since then, the property has been rented out as a vacation home by the National Trust. Visits are only possible on a few weekends a year. By 1978 the Landmark Trust became aware of the dilapidated gatehouse. He leased it from the National Trust and had it painstakingly restored. The Landmark Trust has also been renting the gatehouse as a vacation home since 1981. On December 14, 1955, the Old Shute House and the gatehouse on May 8, 1967, were listed as a historical monument. The gatehouse and, since October 19, 1984, the Old Shute House are protected as Grade I cultural monuments.
investment
The property is on the eastern edge of the hamlet of Shute . The gatehouse leads to Old Shute House, directly opposite is St Michael's Church with the grave monuments of the Pole family. Between the church and the Old Shute House, the driveway leads through a park to New Shute House.
The gatehouse
The access to Shute House is through the Elizabethan style three-storey gatehouse, which was not built as a fortification, but as a status symbol. Due to its quarry stone masonry , the battlements and the gargoyles , which presumably come from an older building, it should make an ancient impression as early as the 16th century. It originally had more windows on the upper floors, which were used for representation in a time when glass was expensive. The second floor may have served as a lookout point to watch the hunt in the nearby deer park. From the 19th century until around 1958 at the latest, the gatehouse served as accommodation for servants. Since the restoration from 1978 to 1981, it has a stucco ceiling in the Jacobean style on the second floor . This originally came from a house in Barnstaple that was demolished in the 1930s . The ceiling had been partially stored and was installed during the restoration of the gatehouse. A crenellated wall adjoins both sides of the gateway, which connects the gatehouse with two two-story pavilions. These were rebuilt in the 19th century in the style of the gatehouse.
Old Shute House
Large parts of the mansion date from the late 14th century, while a large part of the additions made in the late 15th and 16th centuries were demolished in 1785. The two- to three-story buildings made of exposed quarry stone enclose an inner courtyard on three sides. The slate roofs are behind a crenellated wreath, which is only used for decoration. In the oldest part, the southeast wing, there was the kitchen on the ground floor and above that the originally two-storey living hall. On the south side a square tower was added in the late 15th century, which was richly windowed in the late 16th or early 17th century. The adjacent northeast wing dates from the late 15th century. It has an octagonal stair tower at the north end. On the east side, the beginnings of the walls of the parts of the building demolished in the 18th century are visible. On the other side of the south-east wing is the two-storey south-west wing with the gate passage, which was built or significantly rebuilt in the 15th century.
Despite numerous renovations, the old manor house still has parts of the old interior. The over 7 m wide and 3 m wide fireplace in the kitchen, which takes up an entire side wall, is considered the largest surviving fireplace in England. A false ceiling was installed in the living hall above, but the wooden roof structure is still visible on the upper floor. Especially in the rooms on the second floor, parts of the furnishings from the 17th century with beamed ceilings, chimneys and wood paneling have been preserved.
Immediately to the north-west of the south-west wing is a large barn from the 18th century, a little further there are former stables and other farm buildings that were converted into apartments in the 20th century. These buildings are protected as Grade II cultural monuments.
Web links
- National Trust: Shute Barton
- The Landmark Trust: Shute Gatehouse
- Historic England: Old Shute House
- Historic England: Gate House at Old Shute House including flanking walls and pavilions
Individual evidence
- ^ History of Parliament Online: POLE, John (c.1589-1658), of Shute, Devon; later of Colcombe Castle, Colyton, Devon and Bromley-by-Bow, Mdx. Retrieved September 14, 2017 .
- ^ The Landmark Trust: Shute Gatehouse - Restoration. Retrieved September 12, 2017 .
- ^ The National Trust: Shute Barton. Retrieved September 12, 2017 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 46 '17.4 " N , 3 ° 3' 41.4" W.