| Summary: | Moreton (now part of Grenville College). Formerly known as Daddon.
Large house, now a school (Grenville Colege). c1821. Solid rendered walls. Hipped slate roof. Rendered chimneys at front; yellow-brick ones at rear.
U-shaped plan: front range has entrance-hall with main staircase to rear, one room at either side and rear range parallel to front; infilled courtyard joins up with service-building to rear right, this having its own centre courtyard with ranges on all 4 sides.
House 3-storeyed; service building 1- and 2-storeyed. Main front of house of 8-window range with 8-window return to left. Centre doorway with 4-columned Doric porch, now glazed: 4-panelled door, the top 2 panels now glazed; at either side a sash-window with glazing-bars (6 over 9 panes). Flanking the porch are 2 bow windows with pilasters supporting entablature; each has 3 sash-windows matching those in the porch, except that the lower sashes to left now have no glazing-bars. Upper-storey windows plain with barred sashes: 6 over 6 panes to second storey, 3 over 6 panes to third storey. Giant pilasters flank the whole front; above them an entablature with parapet.
Return front to left is similar in style, but without bow windows; the right-hand ground-storey window has no glazing-bars, nor have the lower sashes in the fourth and sixth windows from the left. Raised band between ground and second storeys. Rear range has barred sashes as in the 2 main fronts. Service building has sashes with margin-panes.
Interior: includes many C19 panelled doors and shutters; also enriched ceilings and cornices. Main stair rebuilt soon after 1913 and 3 first-floor rooms continued to from a ballroom. Entrance-hall has C20 Georgian-style panelling and C19 Tudor-style black marble chimneypiece with Gothic fireback.
Jacobean-style oak staircase with turned balusters and carved newels; Georgian-style panelled dado; early C19 enriched oval cupola (restored 1989). Corridor along rear wing has panelled pilasters and groined-vaulted ceiling. Ground-floor front left room and the 2 wing rooms behind it all have enriched ceilings and cornices. Ballroom has apsidal ends; panelling and ceiling in Adam style; early C19 white marble chimneypiece with caryatids and carved frieze.
This was originally Daddon, the C18 seat of George Buck, esq, who is believed to have started rebuilding in about 1760, although the irregular plan suggests that he retained some of the earlier fabric. Lewis William Buck (d 1858) is said to have completed the work and changed the name to Moreton in 1821; he was MP for Exeter 1826-32 and for North Devon 1834-58; entertained Disraeli at the house. Sir Hugh Stueley, bt, who moved here in 1913 also made substantial alterations. |
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