Poltimore House

Poltimore House is an sixteenth century manor house just outside Exeter, Devon and originally the Bampfylde family seat. It was a finalist in the first series of BBC Television's Restoration series in 2003.

History

The Bampfylde family were bequeathed the village of Poltimore in 1298 by William Pontyngton, a canon of Exeter Cathedral. There is no record of where the family lived for the first few hundred years, although it is thought that they lived in or near the village. There is no evidence that there was a previous house on the site of the present one.

Poltimore House was built by Richard Bampfylde, who started the works in 1550 ["A Devon House - the Story of Poltimore" by Jocelyn Hemming, published 2005 by University of Plymouth Press] . There is no record of when the house was finished, although when Richard died in 1595, he left the house to his son, Amyas, in his will.

As Richard had been appointed Sheriff for Devon in 1576, it is considered that his grand house was complete by then. Two wings of his original house are can still be seen in the present building. It is not known what form the original house took – whether it was just these two wings forming a "L", or if there was a third or even a fourth wing forming a courtyard in the middle.

Later members of the family added to the building, with the last major building works in 1908, to give the present house.

It was lived in by the family until 1920, when it was put on the market with its grounds and estate. The estate was sold but not the house and grounds, which were instead leased to a girls' school and became Poltimore College. The school closed in 1939. In 1940, the boys from Dover College were evacuated to Poltimore House.

The House became a hospital in 1945, at first a private one which was used by the National Health Service when it came into existence in 1948. Later it was taken over by the NHS. It closed as a hospital in 1974.

It then went through a series of owners before suffering an arson attack in 1987 and being left empty from then on. It suffered from theft and vandalism and has fallen into a state if disrepair. Poltimore House Trust was set up in 2000 to try to find a use for the house and restore it. The first phase was to encase the house in scaffolding with a roof to protect it, which was done in 2005.

Contact

* The Friends of Poltimore House, PO Box 409, Exeter, UK, EX4 5WZ email: [e-mail]

See also

*List of Restoration Candidates
*Baron Poltimore

External links

*IoE|88466
* [http://www.poltimore.org Trust and Friends of Poltimore House]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/news_features/2003/restoration.shtml BBC Devon Features]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3108888.stm Poltimore restoration to go ahead]

References