Haldon House

Arms of Chudleigh: Ermine, three lions rampant gules[5]

It was built in about 1723 (Polwhele)[6] or 1735 (Pevsner)[7] by Sir George Chudleigh, 4th Baronet (died 1738), and was influenced by Buckingham House in London, built in about 1715.[1] As Polwhele (d.1838) stated in his History of Devonshire (1793): "About 70 years since Sir George Chudleigh began to build Haldon House. It is one of the best modern houses in Devonshire exectuted after the model of Buckingham House in St James's Park. Sir George Chudleigh died before the building was completed".[8] Chudleigh's ancestral seat was at nearby Ashton House, on the west side of Haldon Hill, the residence of his family since about 1320, and which he abandoned to build Haldon House on the east side of the hill. In 1798 Ashton House was in ruins.[9] He married Frances Davie (1697-1748),[10] one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Sir William Davie, 4th Baronet (1662-1706/7) of Creedy[11] in the parish of Sandford, Devon. He died without male progeny, leaving four daughters and co-heiresses.

Arms of Chichester: Chequy or and gules, a chief vair

Like his father-in-law, Sir George Chudleigh, 4th Baronet himself died leaving four daughters and co-heiresses, the second of whom was Frances Chudleigh, whose share of her paternal inheritance was Haldon[12] and Ashton,[13] who married Sir John Chichester, 5th Baronet (1721-1784) of Youlston in the parish of Shirwell, Devon.[12] Chichester, whose prominent family had been firmly established in North Devon for many centuries, already had a grand seat in North Devon, namely Youlston Park, built by his grandfather the 3rd Baronet[14] (who sold the ancient family seat of Raleigh in the parish of Pilton),[15] and thus had no use for Haldon. He sold Haldon House to Mrs Anne Basset.[12]

Arms of Basset (Barry wavy of six or and gules) impaling Prideaux (Argent, a chevron sable in chief a label of three points gules)

"Mrs Anne Basset" (1718-1760),[16] née Anne Prideaux (d.1760), daughter and co-heir of Sir Edmund Prideaux, 5th Baronet of Netherton, widow of John Pendarvis Basset[17] (1713–1739) of Tehidy in the parish of Illogan in Cornwall, purchased Haldon from Sir John Chichester, 5th Baronet (1721-1784)[12] and was resident there in 1758.[18] Her only son John Prideaux Basset (1740 (posthumous)-1756) died in 1756 aged 16, when the Basset estates passed to his uncle, Francis Basset (died 1769). From that time therefore she may have lost her residence at Tehidy and required alternative housing, hence her purchase of Haldon. She died in 1760, and appointed as trustees of her will her cousin Thomas Hawkins of Trewithen, and Rev. Thomas Carlyon of St. Just-in-Roseland. Her legatees included her cousin Charles Evelyn of Totnes, who assigned his inheritance in settlement of a debt to Samuel Squire, Bishop of St. Davids.[19] Her husband was a member of the junior branch of the prominent Basset family of Umberleigh and Heanton Punchardon in North Devon. She[12] (or her trustees) sold Haldon to John Jones, Esq.[12]

John Jones purchased Haldon from Mrs Anne Basset. Little is recorded about him, except that "John Jones of Haldon House" was the heir-at-law of the Sheppard family, of Heightly in the parish of Chudleigh, Devon, and owners of a fishery and the Barton of Lewell, Chudleigh. On 6 September 1722 Sir James Sheppard (c.1681-1730), of Watton Court, Honiton, and Lawell, Chudleigh, Devon,[20] Serjeant-at-Law, MP, purchased the "Teign Fishery" at Chudleigh, Devon, "with the Manor of Heightly and the Barton of Lewell" from Nicholas Cove, Esq., and William Coombe, Esq., executors of James Eastchurch. On 17 June 1768 the reversion of the said premises determinable on the death of Frances Sheppard, relict of James Sheppard, Esq., grandson of the knight, was sold by John Jones, of Haldon House, Esq., the heir at law, to Hugh Clifford, 4th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1726–1783)Ugbrooke Park in Devon.[21] John Jones sold Haldon to William Webber, Esq.[12]

William Webber was resident at Haldon in 1769, as his manuscript notes in a book formerly in his library reveal. An entry in the 1840 catalogue of the Bristol bookseller William Strong lists a 1734 "Edition of Izacke's Remarkable Antiquities of the City of Exeter with manuscript additions by W. Webber of Haldon House, 1769".[22] Webber who sold Haldon to Sir Robert Palk.[12]

Arms of Palk: Sable, an eagle displayed argent beaked and legged or a bordure engrailed of the second[23]

Haldon House, east front, painting by Francis Towne, commissioned in 1780 by Sir Robert Palk, 1st Baronet

In about 1770 Haldon was purchased from William Webber[8] by Sir Robert Palk, 1st Baronet (1717–1798), a former officer of the East India Company and Governor of Madras Province, who enlarged it. Palk had intended to build a mansion at Torwood[24] in his manor of Tor Mohun, which he had purchased from Lord Donegal in about 1759, but where he had been unable to purchase various surrounding fields which interfered with the estate.[25] The Torwood estate was later developed by his successors into half of the resort of Torquay.

Major-General Stringer Lawrence (1697–1775), the first Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India, spent his retirement at Haldon House as an honoured guest of his friend from Indian days Sir Robert Palk, to whom he bequeathed the huge sum of £50,000 and in whose memory in 1788 Palk erected the "Lawrence Tower" (alias "Haldon Belvedere") on his estate. In 1789 Haldon House was viewed by Rev. John Swete (died 1821) of nearby Oxton House, a connoisseur of the picturesque, and a former protegé of Palk's, who in his journal criticised its design in having two wings which swept forward in curves, which although effective in built-up London for Buckingham House, here resulted in much of the spectacular view of the surrounding countryside being blocked off from the front of the house.[26] Palk removed the formal gardens and replaced them with lawns and clumps of trees[26] in the then fashionable style. The house was visited by several notable people, including King George III (1760–1820), whom Sir Robert Palk escorted to view the Lawrence Tower along a specially made carriage drive.

He was succeeded as follows:

• Sir Lawrence Palk, 2nd Baronet (c. 1766–1813)
• Sir Lawrence Vaughan Palk, 3rd Baronet (1793–1860), resident at Haldon in 1830 as an engraving of that date states.
• Sir Lawrence Palk, 4th Baronet (1818–1883) (created Baron Haldon in 1880)

Photograph circa 1900

James[27] FitzGerald[28] Bannatyne (1 May 1833 - 18 October 1915)[29] of Summerville[30] and Fanningstown Castle, Co. Limerick, Ireland, purchased Haldon House from the Palks in 1892.[31] Mr Bannatyne was a Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace for Devon. He was a substantial flour merchant with premises in Dock Road in Limerick, Ireland.[32] He was one of the nine original subscribers at the foundation in 1897 of the "Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Ltd.", later "Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Co. Ltd.".[33] Marconi performed some of his early experiments in radio transmission from nearby Haldon Hills.

Bannatyne married Emily Gertrude Wilson (15 October 1851 - 10 October 1928),[34] of Collipriest Cottage, Tiverton.[35][36] His daughter Mary Stuart Bannatyne married Major Ludovic Heathcoat-Amory, son of Sir John Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Baronet[37] of Knightshayes Court, near Tiverton. He died on October 18, 1915 and on 14 May 1916 his only son Major James Fitzgerald Bannatyne (1884–1916), 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars (attached to the 23rd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment)[38] was killed in action at the age of 32 during World War I[39] and was buried in the Merville Communal Cemetery in Northern France.

Mrs Bannatyne moved away in 1919 immediately after the War and put the estate up for sale. She had acquired the Palk Manuscripts, an important four-volume collection of the correspondence of Sir Robert Palk relating to Indian affairs.[40] A single buyer was not forthcoming and the estate was split up and sold piecemeal.[41] At the time of its demolition in 1925 the house had six reception rooms (sizes 30 by 20 feet, 22 by 30, 50 by 17½, 28½ by 18½, 22 by 22½ and one other), 38 bedrooms, a ballroom, theatre and chapel to seat 100. No buyer could be found and with the gardens and a 5-acre field it was withdrawn at £1,350. The final sale of the last of the estate was in 1925. The furnishings of the chapel were purchased by Clifton College for its own chapel.[42]

"Tower on Pen Hill", 1792 watercolour (from 1789 sketch) by Rev. John Swete (died 1821). View from south; one of the earliest surviving images of the Haldon Belvedere

Rev. John Swete (died 1821), of nearby Oxton House, visited the tower in September 1789 and recorded in his Journal as follows:[50]

"As we were now on our departure from Haldown on the descent of its northern extremity, we had before us a triangular tower raised by Sir Robert Palk and devoted to the memory of his friend General Lawrence. It had a round tower at each angle and rose three stories high. From its own elevation and that of the conical hill on which it was placed it became an object to the most distant parts of the county; it is hardly possible to conceive a spot better adapted to an edifice of this nature than this of Pen Hill, denominated so by the Britons on account of its eminence. I took the opposite sketch from the road from whence the pine-clad hill and the tower were seen in great perfection".

The previously "wild and bare"[51] Haldon Hills had recently been planted with trees by Sir Robert Palk, which today surround the tower and cover the hill. Swete entered the tower and made transcripts of the three memorial tablets to Stringer Lawrence, and also transcribed the epitaph to him by Hannah More on his monument in nearby Dunchideock Church.