Description

TIVERTON

SS9512 LEAT STREET, Tiverton
848-1/6/217 Exeleigh House
14/12/72

II

House, c1820, built by John Heathcoat for himself. Used as
offices at one time, empty and in poor condition at time of
survey. Rendered, with some local stone rubble exposed where
the render has fallen off; slate roof with lead rolls; brick
stacks with rendered shafts with sunk panels and some old
chimneypots; cast-iron rainwater goods.
PLAN: double-depth plan with central entrance into a hall, the
stair rising axially to rear of the hall with top-lit
stairwell. Basement kitchen and service rooms with back stair.
The attic has been used for accommodation. Additional service
rooms and possible stabling to rear, screened off by a stone
rubble wall.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, basement and attic. Symmetrical 5-bay
front with deep boxed eaves on shaped brackets; hipped roof
built round central valley with glazed dome for stairwell.
Steps up to porch which has unusual cast-iron paired Ionic
columns to an entablature and cornice. The sides of the porch
have been infilled with late C19 or C20 2-pane sash windows
and the 2-leaf half-glazed porch door with overlight and side
lights is also secondary.
The ground floor has 12-pane hornless timber sashes with
timber hoods with mouldings for blinds which no longer exist.
First-floor windows are also 12-pane sashes except the centre
window which is tripartite: 12-pane in the centre and 2 over
2-pane in the outer lights. There are gabled attic dormers
with slate-hung sides and pedimented gables, glazed with
2-light casements, 3 panes per light.
The right return (to the River Exe) has chanelled rustication
to the basement level. It is 3-bay with a central round-headed
niche and a secondary doorway to the rear with steps up and a
door of six fielded panels with an overlight. Windows are
12-pane hornless sashes. The left return is similar, but the
basement is exposed with one louvred and one glazed window and
a former doorway in the centre bay.
The 4-window rear elevation is partly obscured at ground-floor
level by the screen wall to the projecting rear service rooms.
The first floor outer windows are 12-pane sashes, the inner
windows are nine over six panes. Two small timber boxes
(function unknown) are fixed to the external wall, with
doorways which could be opened from the windows. The function
of these is unknown.
The stone rubble rear screen wall is pilastered and contains
two windows and a bull's-eye opening; a doorway leading to the
kitchen and a garage door knocked into it at one end.
INTERIOR: the house is very complete inside, although most
chimneypieces are missing. There are good plaster cornices;
6-panel doors with planted mouldings; one white marble
chimneypiece; shutters. There is a particularly good staircase
with a cast-iron balustrade of decorated panels. A narrow room
behind the ground floor right front room has had part of its
wall removed and supported on cast-iron columns.
HISTORY: John Heathcoat (1783-1861) was a major influence in
Tiverton in the nineteenth century. He moved to Tiverton from
Nottingham in c1816, transferring his lace manufactory which
had been attacked by Luddites in Nottingham. By the 1860s it
was estimated that the West Exe factory in Tiverton employed
more than twenty percent of the town's population. Heathcoat
developed the West Exe area with housing and is a nationally
important figure in the history of industrial housing and
workers' welfare. He also built the first factory school (at
the gates of the factory) in Devon. His grandson built
Knightshayes (qv).
The house is sited close to the River Exe with the parish
church high above it on the opposite bank. The house is now
accessible only through the Heathcoat factory complex which
has been developed round it, and its garden and immediate
historic environment has been altered.
Exeleigh House is a good example of a Georgian villa, with
some unusual features (the cast-iron columns to the porch) but
is also historically important as Heathcoat's house, sited
close to the factory and the West Exe development.
(Southern History: Brayshay, Mark: Heathcoat's Industrial
Housing in Tiverton, Devon.: 1991-: 82-104).

Listing NGR: SS9532212901

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26664663

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.

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