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Summary

Attractive house overlooking a series of five terraced gardens. Each of the gardens has its own particular feature. The house and gardens were designed by Fred Harrild, a pupil of Lutyens, and built in the late 1920s, early 1930s. Formerly known as Glen Gorse.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1393661: CASTLE TOR

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HOUSE (Built, Early 20th Century to Mid 20th Century - 1928 AD (Between) to 1934 AD (Between))

Full description

Harrild, F., ?1920s, Glen Gorse (Illustration). SDV365985.

Copies of drawings of the house and terraced gardens. Designed by the architect, F. Harrild.

Torquay Times Reporter, 1950, 'Glengorse' is in the market (Article in Serial). SDV365983.

Nine bedroomed house overlooking five terraces built mainly of Somerset stone. Designed by Harrild, a pupil of Lutyens.

Unattributed, 1960, It's still like a fairy castle... (Article in Serial). SDV365984.

Attractive house with stone-terraced gardens. Each of the five terraces has its own special feature.

Ordnance Survey, 2024, Mastermap 2024 (Cartographic). SDV365834.

Large house marked as Castelo do Sol.

Historic England, 2024, National Heritage List for England, 1000131 (National Heritage List for England). SDV365835.

Castle Tor. A late 1920s terraced garden around a contemporary house, with architectural elements including terraces, pools and an orangery designed by Fred Harrild, and planting schemes and design details attributed to George Dillistone of R Wallace and Co, Tunbridge Wells.
Castle Tor, originally Glengorse, was constructed to designs by Fred Harrild c 1929. The two-storey house is conceived in a loosely Arts and Crafts style, with slate pitched roofs, a slate-hung first-floor elevation to the south, painted rough-cast walls and leaded windows. Aerial views of c 1934 show the house as built, with short projecting gabled wings with first-floor balconies at the west and east ends of the south or garden facade and open loggias on the ground floor. A short wing to the north-west encloses the north side of the entrance court, while a separate two-storey staff annex stands immediately to the north-west of the main house. A single-storey canted bay window with a slate roof of exaggerated pitch projects from the east facade and overlooks the sunken garden. Later C20 alterations include the enclosure of the open loggias on the south facade and the replacement of a first-floor square bay window with a balcony. A mid C20 glass-roofed sun lounge was replaced with a slate-roofed, part glazed verandah in 1998.
See listing description for full details of the garden.
Date first listed as a Park and Garden: 12th August 1987

Historic England, 2024, National Heritage List for England, 1393661 (National Heritage List for England). SDV365835.

Castle Tor, built in 1928-34, designed by Fred Harrild FRIBA, architect. Later extensions.
MATERIALS: it is constructed of traditional materials: rendered mass wall construction with a slate roof and rendered stack, and some slate-hanging to the gables and walls. The majority of windows have been replaced with uPVC in the late-C20.
PLAN: the house is irregular in plan, with the principal rooms (south-east) overlooking the garden and sea views. The service rooms are to the rear. The entrance hall, with staircase, is to the south-west. An elaborate fight of stone stairs with arches leads to the enclosed entrance courtyard (west).
EXTERIOR: externally, the two-storey house is asymmetrical. EXTERIOR: externally, the two-storey house is asymmetrical. A later-C20 single-story extension with large windows and a hipped, slate facia occupies much of the ground floor, supporting an extensive sun-terrace, with wrought iron balustrading. Above, the original slate-hung gables of the cross wings survive. The south-east cross wing retains its wrought iron balcony above the in-filled logia, with rusticated stone piers in-situ. The south-east (courtyard) elevation is little altered. To the south the projecting two-storey porch has a hipped roof and ashlar details to the openings, including a gibbs surround and a moulded drip hood to the entrance. The panelled door is set in a Tudor arch. There is a central, stained-glass staircase window with a Tudor-rose motif. A number of smaller, lancet and single light windows retain their original geometric leaded-lights. To the north a narrow, cross-wing projects, tower-like, with a hipped roof and deep, overhanging, eaves; there is a series of small, single-light, mullioned windows wrapping around its three projecting sides, just below the eaves.
The east elevation has a large canted-bay window with a steeply pitched, slate-hung, gable-end and timber mullioned windows, with square leaded-lights. To the north of the porch the building steps back, with timber, mullioned windows, with square leaded-lights and fish-scale, slate-hung walls. The rear elevation (north-west) is terraced into steeply rising ground. Castle Tor sits within a Registered Landscape (Grade II) also designed by F Harrild; it contains a number of separately listed buildings and structures.
INTERIOR: the house retains a number of notable features including good quality joinery, a dog-leg staircase with twisted balusters and a stained glass staircase window; and fine burr-wood doors with crystal handles. Some of the timber windows with leaded-lights also survive. Much of the interior plasterwork survives with intricate cornicing and panelling in the principal rooms; alterations have taken place throughout (especially to the former service quarters). An upstairs bathroom retains mosaic decoration.
HISTORY: Castle Tor and the architectural elements of the garden were designed by Fred Harrild, and constructed by a local builder named William Amos Deakin. The rough, steeply-sloping land, overlooking the sea, was formerly part of Lord Holdon's estate and was purchased in the 1920s by Horace Pickersgill, the son of a Leeds bookmaker, who had been advised to winter in Torquay for health reasons: this was the age of the Devon Riviera, when appreciation of Devon's beauty and climate was very high. Harrild, a former pupil of Sir Edwin Lutyens (articled in 1907), became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; based for a period in Totnes, he exhibited a number of designs for houses and a garden in Torquay at the Royal Academy between 1929-33. He is acknowledged as a leading practitioner of the late Arts and Crafts movement in Devon. A watercolour of the gardens by Cyril Farey was shown at the 1933 RA. Changes took place to the house in c.1980 and in 1998.
Reasons for Designation
Castle Tor is designated at Grade II, for the following principal reasons: * Architectural interest: the house, designed by respected Fred Harrild, is carefully and imaginatively designed in an unusually ambitious interpretation of Devon vernacular on a grand scale. Alterations notwithstanding, the house retains external and internal elements of note. * Group value: the house sits within a registered landscape, containing other listed structures, which constitites an exceptionally ambitious ensemble. * Representivity: the house and grounds form a notable example of designing for seaside retirement from the inter-war period.
Date first listed: 4th February 2010

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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