Description

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 26/06/2018.

SX 68 NE
3/41

CHAGFORD
Holystreet Mill

(Formerly listed as Holystreet Manor)

20.2.52

GV

II
Mansion. C16 or early C17 core but most was rebuilt 1913-14. The older walling is of coursed blocks of granite ashlar detail, the rebuilding work is brick-faced with granite rubble tending to courses with granite ashlar quoins and detail; granite stacks with granite ashlar chimney shafts; slate roof.

Plan and development: the 1913-14 rebuilding works were so extensive that only a fragment of exterior walling survives from the former house. This is on the south (garden) side. Here is the front passage doorway with what was probably the hall and inner room to left (west) of it, and what may have been a parlour wing projecting forward from a putative inner room. The hall has an axial stack backing onto the passage and the parlour has an end stack.

The rest of the house has been completely rebuilt as a commodious Edwardian residence but done so in a Tudor style consistent with the earlier work. The principal rooms are those in the south wing. Besides the rooms of the original house described above there is another parlour right (east) of the passage with an outer axial stack and right of this a chapel dedicated to St. Boniface over another room. Access to the chapel is gained by an external stair and it has a projecting front lateral stack. It projects forward from the east wing. This wing has the present main doorway and porch with accommodation to right, two rooms with an axial stack between. The end ground floor is the boilerhouse and this end projects forward from the north wing.

This north wing is double depth and has a two-room plan with an axial stack between. A single storey corridor connects the ends of the north and south wings across the north side. The rooms on the north and east sides house the service rooms. Two storeys with attics.

Exterior. The main front faces south onto the garden and the central three-window section is nearly symmetrical about the central doorway. The doorway is early C17. It is a segmental, nearly round-headed, arch with moulded surround, carved spandrels and a hoodmould with florettes carved onto the labels. Directly above is a contemporary three-light window with chamfered mullions. The gable above has been rebuilt with shaped kneelers and coping and containing a small rectangular niche. This bay is articulated as a porch by the flanking buttresses of 1913-14. A relieving arch of the same date springs from the buttresses over the first floor windows. The hall window to left is early C17. It is tall, four-lights with central king mullion and hoodmould. Above another contemporary three-light mullioned window. The inner face of the parlour wing also has a ground floor four-light and first floor three-light window. The labels to the hoodmould here are carved with the initials T and R but the label carving of the hall window have worn away. All these early C17 windows have chamfered granite mullions. To right of the doorway the windows date from 1913-14, a ground floor three-light mullion-and-transom window and a first floor three-light mullioned window. Both have granite chamfered mullions. The entrance bay gable is flanked by two-light timber casement dormers with hipped roofs. The gable end of the parlour wing has single light first floor windows either side of the stack. Ground floor right a doorway in a Tudor arch with a mullioned overlight. The hall window contains diamond panes of leaded glass. The others, throughout the house, contain rectangular panes of leaded glass. The gable, like all the others, has shaped kneelers and coping. The eaves, right round the house, have slate soffits.

The apex of the gable end of the chapel is carried forward on corbels to form a hood over an arch-headed niche containing a carved figure of St. Boniface. There is a granite apex cross here. Ground floor four-light mullion-and-transom window and a triple lancet window to the chapel. The central lancet is taller and its head is cusped. The hoodmould steps up over this central lancet. In the right side is the external chapel doorway, a two-central arch, gained by a flight of granite steps enclosed by a granite wall.

The porch, at the left end of the east wing, has a three-centred outer arch and the doorway behind has a round-headed arch and is flanked by side lights. The porch is gabled. This front overall has a four-window front of one, two and three light mullioned windows and there are three dormers containing timber casements with hipped roofs. The north front has a two-window front, tall ground floor five-light mullion-and-transom windows and first floor four-light mullioned windows and a single dormer. There is a doorway in the rear of the east wing; a Tudor arch with a mullioned overlight. The west side has an irregular disposition of timber ovolo-moulded mullion windows and the gables here are slate hung. All the doors round the house dated from 1913-14. They are heavily studded moulded plank doors with large hand-tooled wrought iron strap hinges.

Interior is well-preserved. The former hall and parlour fireplaces may be C17. Both are plain granite ashlar. The hall has a late C17 overmantel of ornamental plasterwork featuring a heraldic achievement. However this is probably not in situ. The rest of the interior structure and detail is wholly 1913-14 in date. The most impressive part is the stair hall. This has a flag floor and contains a monumental oak open well staircase. It has large square newel posts with large vase-like finials and moulded pendants, closed string, heavily moulded balusters and moulded handrail. It has a large open fireplace with a soffit-moulded segmental head. Large round-headed granite arches lead off to the rooms and corridor. The first floor landing is like a C17 gallery and the other walls are oak framed with a continuous range of internal borrowed-light windows around. The roof here is exposed and late medieval in style with arch-braced trusses with king posts and queen struts. The rooms have exposed timber crossbeams large open granite fireplaces and round-headed granite doorways with studded plank doors. Roof dates from 1913-14 throughout.

Holystreet Mill is a most attractive Tudor-style house with equally attractive listed stables (q.v.) and Coach House (q.v.). It is set in an exceptionally picturesque valley location.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26400075

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

• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)