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Summary

The name Beara was mentioned in an early 14th century document. Beara Court however, is mainly a 19th century creation but with 17th century remnants of an earlier structure retained.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• HOUSE (XVII to XIX - 1601 AD (Between) to 1900 AD (Between))

Full description

Devon County Council, 1838-1848, Tithe Mosaic, approximately 1838-1848 (Cartographic). SDV349431.

Beara is shown as a broadly rectangular house with an adjoining building off the north side. It is set within a irregular shaped yard with additional ranges of buildings along the west side and in the north-east corner. Recorded as House, Buildings and Yard (Plot 582) on the Black Torrington Tithe Apportionment. To the south is a rectangular garden (Plot 581). Other field names record that it was largely surrounded by orchards.

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

Marked as Beara. Comparison with the Tithe Map suggests that the house has been extended.

Historic England, 2025, Beara Court, Road from Narracott Cross to Beara Cross, Highampton, Devon, EX21 5JJ (List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest). SDV366398.

Notification of an application to add Bear Court to the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.

Historic England, 2025, Consultation Report for Beara Court, Highampton, Beaworthy, Black Torrington (List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest). SDV366486.

A building was referred to at Beara in a document of 1330 when ‘Nicolas ate Beare’ was the occupier. However, Beara Court is largely a late 19th century architectural creation of Lucius Hurlock Reichel (1842-1927), the younger brother of Revd. Oswald Reichel FSA of A La Ronde, Exmouth (Grade I). Oswald helped his brother acquire Beara Court and its 156-acre estate from Sir George Stucley Bart. In 1873 so that Lucius, a keen antiquarian and architect, could rebuild the house as his country seat. The house was reoriented to face south but some parts of the earlier structure were retained, such as the granite vaulting and stop-chamfered beams to the basement, the latter probably dating to the ownership of the Parson family in the 17th century.

Many of the fittings and architectural features in the house are reused from other sites or repurposed from the earlier building on the site. Reichel aspired to be a gentleman squire and gave his profession on the 1891 census as ‘architect and farmer’. He also planted trees extensively on the estate and made someattempts at landscaping the grounds.

Later in the 20th century, alterations and improvements were made to the house and staff accommodation wing and for a time it was in use as an Elizabethan Country Hotel.
Repairs and some alterations were made in the late 20th century, although the original heating and bell systems were not replaced.

The exterior is of a baronial Old English Revival style, half-timbered gables with leaded casements counterplay with coursed dressed granite elevations with casements with
deep stone mullions, eared architraves and ‘Gothick’ glazing bars. The principal front (south) is of an irregular six bays with the lefthand set back with two half-timbered gabled
bays and the righthand breaking forward with a central full height gabled stone porch. Themain entrance in the porch has a two-centred (Tudor) arch, decoration to the spandrels and rams horn detailing to the base of the stone architrave.

The capacious entrance hall has an inner hall defined on two sides by a plastered Tudor-arched arcade. Four substantial cranked beams with deep ovolo chamfers span the
arcade and the wall to the drawing room between the front door and the open-well staircase at the rear of the room.

The oak-panelled Great Hall is open to the roof and has an inglenook to the west wall with a stone fireplace below a gallery with Tudor-arched arcade. The roof has five trusses set on corbels, alternately hammer-beam/ dentilled tie beams, and with tracery to the spandrels between the posts and braces, and curved wind braces to three sets of purlins above.

Below the Great Hall is a basement accessed by steps from a wide oak plank door with iron studs, and there a fireplace built within the vaulted ceiling. The basement under east
end of the house has rooms with stop-chamfered beams facing the garden, which may relate to the earlier house on the site. There is a labyrinthine set of rooms and passages
with unfinished stone walls and vaulting under the south side of the house, and with signs of former window openings. There is a late-19th century chamfered and pegged doorframe to the stone steps under the main staircase.

The garage, stables and staff wing are included in the consulation along with subsidiary features such as stone urns and steps, ramped walls which define a courtyard, a late 20th-early 21st century agricultural building and two mid-late 20th centruy greenhouses.

Ordnance Survey, 2025, Mastermap 2025 (Cartographic). SDV366286.

Beara Court is shown as a large house within its own wooded grounds with ponds and a tennis court.

Sources / Further Reading

SDV336179	Cartographic: Ordnance Survey. 1880-1899. First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch map. First Edition Ordnance Survey 25 inch Map. Map (Digital).
SDV349431	Cartographic: Devon County Council. 1838-1848. Tithe Mosaic, approximately 1838-1848. Digitised Tithe Map. Digital.
SDV366286	Cartographic: Ordnance Survey. 2025. Mastermap 2025. Ordnance Survey Digital Mapping. Digital. [Mapped feature: #143680 ]
SDV366398	List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest: Historic England. 2025. Beara Court, Road from Narracott Cross to Beara Cross, Highampton, Devon, EX21 5JJ. Notification of Designation Application. Email.
SDV366486	List of Blds of Arch or Historic Interest: Historic England. 2025. Consultation Report for Beara Court, Highampton, Beaworthy, Black Torrington. Consultation Report. Email.
	Linked documents:1

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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