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Summary

Large house, built 1850, of squared rubble with squared granite quoins, doorways and windows dressed with oolitic limestone, and slated roofs with blue glazed ridge-tiles. Tall, crenellated chimneystacks of similar materials, placed to give romantic effect.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1334509: INDIO HOUSE

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• COUNTRY HOUSE (Built, XIX - 1850 AD to 1850 AD)

Full description

Unknown, 1908, Mates Illustrated Devonshire (Monograph). SDV358387.

Griffith, F. M., 1986, DAP/GW, 2 (Aerial Photograph). SDV253850.

Weddell, P. J., 1986, Indio, Bovey Tracey (Report - Survey). SDV347711.

Clark, J., 2013, Indio House (Un-published). SDV357813.

Indio House replaced an earlier house on this site and was designed in 1850 by the Exeter architect, David Mackintosh for Charles Aldenburg Bentinck, Lord of the Manor of Bovey Tracey. The Victorian, 'Tudor-style' building is rather austere but the tall crenellated chimney stacks give a romantic effect. It is constructed of squared rubble, probably Devonian Limestone with squared granite quoins with the doorways and windows dressed in oolithic Limestone, probably Bath Stone under a state roof with blue glazed ridge tiles. Shelter belt planting screens the property from the main road. The principal rooms of the house face predominately south east with open views across parkland towards woods and the Devon countryside beyond.

Ordnance Survey, 2015, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV357601.

English Heritage, 2015, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV357602.

Large house. Built 1850 for Charles Aldenburg Bentinck. Architect: David Mackintosh. Squared rubble, probably Devonian limestone, with squared granite quoins; doorways and windows dressed with oolitic limestone, probably Bath stone. Slated roofs with blue glazed ridge-tiles. Tall, crenellated chimneystacks of similar materials, placed to give romantic effect. Double-depth plan with asymmetrically placed projections. Attached to north-west end is a lower building, somewhat resembling a chapel, but described in the architect's plan as a laundry; about 3 metres to the north-west of this is a small detached building in a similar style, said to have been used as a butchery. 2 storeys with garret. The exterior, which is virtually unaltered, is designed in an austere Tudor style. Main south- west front is 5 windows wide; the windows, with minor exceptions, are mullioned and transomed with flat heads and no hood-moulds. In the centre bay is a 2-storey gabled entrance-porch. Both inner and outer doorways have 2-centred arches and deep Perpendicular mouldings, the outer arch having quatrefoils in the spandrels and a hood-mould. Above the outer arch is a stone plaque carved with the date 1850, the initials CAB, an heraldic emblem and the motto CRAIGNEZ HONTE. In the second storey of the porch is a 3-light mullioned-and-transomed window having above it a square sunk panel carved with a cross in low relief. At each end of the front is a gabled projection 1 window wide, that to the right given considerably greater emphasis. To right of the porch in second storey is a tall staircase window of 4 mullioned-and- transomed lights. All 3 gables have moulded copings, kneelers and carved apexes. The windows have small square panes, except for the right-hand ground storey window, in which the lower lights have 3 large panes each. The second-storey window to the left of the porch has small square panes with margins of quarter-panes. The laundry building has on its south-west gable a bell-turret and bell. Interiors remarkably well-preserved, at least on the south-eastern side of the house. Remainder not inspected, but north-west front room on ground storey said to have moulded plaster ceiling with date 1850. David Mackintosh, who died in 1859 aged 42, was an Exeter architect apparently specialising mainly in church building and restoration, although in 1859 he was commissioned to build a mansion at Sandridge Park, Wiltshire. There was an earlier house at Indio, built for John Southcote who obtained a perpetual lease of the property from St. John's Hospital, Bridgwater, in 1531. No trace of this house appears to remain, except possibly for some columns in the garden (q.v.). Sources: original drawings dated March 1850 in possession of Mr Burrell of Indio Design Partnership, Ashburton. F. J. Snell, Devonshire, 1908, p.163. J. Youings in Devon and Cornwall Record Society new series, vol.1, 1955, p. 49. G. P. Jones, Notes on Bovey Tracey, 1826 (typescript in Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter); p.8. L. Tregoning, Bovey Tracey, 1983, p.10 Exeter Flying Post, 20.1 and 18.8.1859 with other references (see index in Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter).

Morris, B., 2022, Land North of Indio House, Bovey Tracey, Devon: Interim Archaeological Report (Report - Evaluation). SDV365045.

Indio House is a mid 19th century house built on the site of a 16th century or earlier house. It has been suggested that the site was originally a medieval priory but it was a grange. The Ellis family, who owned the house in the 18th century, established a potworks circa 1766, which closed in 1836. The house was rebuilt in 1850 by Charles Aldenburgh Bentinck, designed in Gothic style by David Mackintosh an ecclesiastical architect from Exeter.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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