Description

BUCKFASTLEIGH

SX7466 STATION ROAD
1011-1/7/140 (North side)
06/01/83 The Rock, including garden walls and
gate piers

GV II

Shown as Rock Villa on OS map.
Villa, used as retirement home, including garden walls and
gate piers. Late 1860s. Colourwashed stuccoed limestone
rubble; natural slate roof with lead rolls; stacks with
cement-rendered shafts with platbands and very deep cornices.
Plan: overall U-plan, the main block with front left and right
wing, the right wing a crosswing. Main block with off-centre
entrance between the wings into a stair hall, 2 rooms to
right, one to left. To rear a separate block parallel to the
main range, perhaps the kitchen or a later service block
constructed of local grey limestone rubble with an axial
stack. Classical style.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 1:3:1-window front. Roof
hipped at ends. Very deep eaves with moulded timber brackets,
plastered soffit and eaves cornice. Platband at first-floor
sill level, front elevation with chanelled rustication below
platband. Front door to left of centre with open porch with
piers with sunk panels, entablature, projecting cornice and
shallow parapet. 4-panel C19 front door with glazed overlight
and side panels with coloured patterned engraved glass. 3
central first-floor and 2 ground-floor windows are C19
hornless 12-pane sashes with moulded architraves.
The projecting wings each have similar first-floor windows,
ground-floor windows are tripartite sashes, 12-pane in the
centre, 4 in the outer lights with moulded architraves and
cornices above a stuccoed panel. The right return has a
scatter of mostly C20 4-pane horned sashes and a glazed door
to the fire escape; sashes to left return.
INTERIOR: stair with turned balusters and mahogany handrail,
good plaster cornice to entrance. Original 4-panel doors with
doorcases noted and some chimneypieces.
Subsidiary features: walls to the gardens in front and on
either side of the house are important to its setting. In
front of the house low snecked local grey limestone rubble
walls with semicircular capping. Gate piers to entrance are
square on plan with sunk panels and shallow pyramidal caps;
plainer gate piers to service entrance to right. To right and
left the villa garden is enclosed by taller local grey rubble
walls with toothed capping, the garden walls to the right
extend along Dart Bridge Road.
The Rock is a well-preserved mid C19 villa standing at the end
of Lower Town and in a visually important position on the edge
of the dense urban area.

Listing NGR: SX7429966160

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26512840

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

• 
  Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990