New Shute House
| New Shute House | |
| Devon | |
|---|---|
 New Shute House | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SY25579698 |
| Location: | 50°46’4"N, 3°3’24"W |
| History | |
| Built 1785 | |
| Country house | |
| Palladian | |
| Information | |
| Condition: | Converted, restored |
New Shute House is a late Palladian country house built between 1785 and 1789 by Sir John de la Pole, 6th Baronet (1757–1799) and is situated within the grounds of Old Shute House (or Shute Barton), in the parish of Shute, near Axminster, in the very east of Devon. The house is a Grade II* listied building.[1]
The house was vacated by the Pole family in 1926 and was let between 1933 and 1974 to a girls' school. In 1974 it was sold by the family to a developer who converted it, together with stables and outbuildings, into 8 freehold apartments.[2] It remains in private ownership and the main block has now been converted back into a single residence from the two vertically divided apartments created in 1974.
History
The builder's five times’ great-grandfather William Pole Esquire (1515–1587), MP, had purchased Old Shute House in 1560 and had acquired a 1,200 year lease of the surrounding estate in 1562. The old house had been built in 1380 and had been substantially enlarged in the Tudor period and by William Pole's son Sir William Pole (1561–1635), the Antiquary.
The 6th baronet, having determined to purchase the freehold of the Shute estate from the Petre family, which was completed in 1787,[3] clearly considered the old house to be old-fashioned, and perhaps encouraged by his wife Anne Templer,[4] whose father had just built Stover House in 1777 at Teigngrace near Newton Abbot, he decided to demolish half of it and build a new Palladian house about half a mile to the south. The demolition was carried out in 1785. The contemporary historiam Polwhele wrote in about 1806:[5]
"Sir John William de la Pole lately destroyed a great part of a very old seate within the manor of Shute, called Shute House. He has now finished another upon a larger scale. New Shute House, begun in 1787, is distant from the old mansion two furlongs south east. It is pleasantly situated under Shute Hill. The aspect is nearly south by east. It is a beautiful three quarter view in front with a very handsonme lawn. The English Channel is distant about four miles".
The decision to build was certainly a hasty one as a field of growing corn was cut down to lay the foundations. The family moved to temporary lodging at Colyton House in nearby Colyton where they remained for two years.[6] The old house was not completely effeced from the landscape as the new house was built on a new site: clearly the old site was considered unsuitable, perhaps being too close to the village and parish church of Shute, and whilst the mediæval house may have been sited with its defensibility as a prime criterion, the new site was more spectacular and had views to the sea.
The house was built using labour from distant Plymouth, as an invoice dated 1798 from a builder of that city named John Bellman reveals.[7] The travelling costs of various workmen between Plymouth and Shute were also charged.[8] These men were therefore probably favoured tradesmen used before by Parlby, as more local Exeter labour appears not to have been used.
Description
The house consists of a central stuccoed block of three floors with a basement divided into five bays, with a flanking pavilion of two stories in four bays, to either side connected by low flanking quadrant walls. In the centre of the front is a large classical pedimented portico fronted by four Ionic columns. The flanking walls screen the service wings behind. The rear elevation has on either side full-height semi-circular bays.
The interior contains much Adam style decorative plasterwork, apparently the work of a certain Mr Powell referred to in the invoice from the builder Bellman,[9] and ornamental fittings. Robert Adam did much work for the Parkers at Saltram House near Plymouth between 1768–72 and 1779–82.[10] The Poles are likely to have been guests at their neighbours at this time, but in any case as they also spent much time in London at their house in Bedford Square, they would have been familiar with Adam's work in London and elsewhere. The north-east pavilion contains a theatre of circa 1900.[11] The top floor housed the servants' quarters.[12] The kitchens were originally situated in the left hand pavilion, later converted into a theatre.[13]
A large Palladian style stables block is situated around a semi-circular courtyard, several hundred yards from the house, now converted into several separate residences. It had stabling for twelve horses and accommodation for grooms.
Interior
The front door opens into a vestibule or hall 15 feet wide which runs to the rear wall of the house.[14] To the left is the Library, in which was painted the portrait by Thomas Beach of Sir John Pole, in which the portico is visible through the window. It contained originally a large Sheraton book-case 11 ft wide and 10 ft high.[15] Further back on the left-hand side beyond a small parlour or smoking room and service staircase lobby, is the Drawing room, 35 ft in length, with full-width bay window in its rear wall, giving extensive views towards the sea. The plasterwork by Bellman on the ceiling of the bay shows the signs of the Zodiac arranged as a semi-circle, with at the centre the Pole coat of arms. The hall is crossed from the drawing room to reach the slightly longer Dining room (40 * 23 ft, 15 ft high[16]), also with full width bay window and containing Corinthian columns. In the Dining Room was hung the famous and immensely valuable life-size portrait of Lady Anne Pole by Romney, and the matching one of her husband. At the front of the house on the right-hand side is the Breakfast Room, as shown on the plan held in his hand in the portrait of Sir John Pole. The main staircase, of shallow-stepped cantilever design without visible support, made from Portland stone, is situated at the rear of the hall and runs around three walls, the rear wall of the house and the two side walls of the hall. On the first floor landing is a large stained glass window displaying the Pole crest.[17] The present house retains most of the original fittings and decorative plasterwork.[18]
Grounds
The site of New Shute House is sloping from the front to the back of the house, which allows for an uninterrupted view of the distant sea. The Poles may have been influenced by the landscaping at Mount Edgecumbe House near Plymouth,[19] Saltram and Killerton House.[20] Pole employed John Veitch, Sir Thomas Acland's head gardener at Killerton, as his landscape designer, who contracted in 1790 to complete the works, which included the making of new roads and fences, by 29 September 1794.[21] Pole planted a large number of young trees, including 1,000 larch and 950 Spruce, as an invoice from the firm Gould Smith dated November 1797 records.[22] Veitch also made the new road to Shute village beyond the Elizabethan Shute Gatehouse ("the Old Lodge") and onward to the road leading to "Shute Piers", about one mile away.[23] The contract specifies: "Toward the lodge...let the road be sunk three feet deeper than the ground is at present as it passes between the Old House and the Church to give more room under the Lodge and also to produce ground for forming the plantation each side intended to cover the said Old House, stables and the churchyard; also to form a plantation ground by raising it up for planting against the walls on each side of the lodge so as when planted and grown-up the said lodge may only appear between the said plantations".[24] Bridie had noted in her work that the lower windows of the gatehouse were now below ground level, but had not ascertained the reason.
See also
- Shute Barton (Old Shute House)
Outside links
References
- ↑ Shute House - British Listed Buildings
- ↑ Turner, p.6
- ↑ Pulman, George P.R., The Book of the Axe, Bath, 1969, p.765
- ↑ Turner, p.19
- ↑ Polwhele, Richard, The History of Devonshire, 1793–1806, published 1806, p.315
- ↑ Turner, p.21
- ↑ Cornwall Record Office, PA/32/34 Invoice dated 1790 from Bellman
- ↑ Turner, p.21
- ↑ Turner, p.58
- ↑ Turner, p.28
- ↑ Listed Building text
- ↑ Turner, p.63
- ↑ Turner, p.65
- ↑ Turner, p.47
- ↑ Bridie, p.162
- ↑ Turner, p.52
- ↑ Turner, p.47; Bridie, p.163
- ↑ Turner, p.40
- ↑ Turner, p.71
- ↑ Turner, p.76
- ↑ Turner, p.78
- ↑ Cornwall Record Office PA/32/34, Gould Smith account 1797-8
- ↑ Turner, p.80
- ↑ Turner, p.80
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Devon, 1952; 1989 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09596-8
- Thorne, R.G., Biography of Sir John de la Pole, 6th Baronet, published in History of Parliament: House of Commons 1790–1820, Volume 3]
- Turner, Maureen A., The Building of New Shute House 1787–1790, MA dissertation, Local & Regional History, University of Exeter, Sept 1999
- Bridie, Marion Ferguson, The Story of Shute: The Bonvilles and the Poles, Axminster, 1955. (Published by Shute School Ltd.), reprinted 1995, Bridport.