Gullet Farmhouse, entrance gate piers, garden walls, steps and sea wall

Summary

A country house, of 1928-1935, designed and built on the footprint of a 17th century Devon farmhouse and dairy, located on the banks of a South Devon estuary. Following an initial refurbishment to the designs of notable London architect Herbert Read, the house was rebuilt following a fire. Read also designed the rebuilt house, as a modern house in the Arts and Crafts style while retaining the essence of the farmhouse and dairy, for his client Ian MacDonald, whose late father, Robert Falconer MacDonald, had been a partner in Read’s practice and was a son of notable Scottish writer George MacDonald. Read also designed a number of other buildings across the estate, all to a very high standard, to help realise the MacDonalds’ vision of creating a modern, working farming estate on the Gullet Peninsula.

Reasons for Designation

Gullet Farmhouse, South Pool, Devon, an inter-war country house including an associated sea wall, steps, gates and gate piers, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a well-executed design in the Arts and Crafts style that thoughtfully incorporates the rebuilding of a historic farmhouse and dairy on the site;
* as a work by notable architect Herbert Read of Read and MacDonald, sympathetically extended and refined by him over an eight year period under the direction of Ian MacDonald, the son of Read’s late partner, Robert Falconer MacDonald;
* it is constructed of high quality materials and well-detailed externally as well as having interiors of good craftsmanship, including an oak panelled entrance hall, chimneypieces to most rooms, and timber casements and other joinery;
* the C21 alterations have retained much of the building’s original plan and many original features:
* the associated sea wall, steps, garden walls and entrance gates with piers all provide an important country estate context at this waterfront location and demonstrate good design and craftsmanship.

Historic interest:

* as a representative example of the revival of country house estates in the South West during the 1920s by affluent owners, with the estate reconfigured to modernised farming methods while providing a refined country retreat for the family and their guests;
* as the country seat of Ian MacDonald, son of the architect Robert Falconer MacDonald, and grandson of George MacDonald, the notable C19 poet and author.

Group value:

* the interest of the house is enriched by its companion country estate buildings, particularly the Home Barn, boat house, Drive Cottage and the dairy (all listed at Grade II).

History

The site of Gullet Farmhouse is shown on the 1840 tithe map for South Pool Parish as a small collection of buildings by the foreshore of Southpool Creek, with other farm buildings in the landscape around it. The farm may have originated as a fishing settlement, and the dates ‘1632 - 1927’ inscribed on a rainwater hopper to the house suggest that the original farmhouse was of early C17 date. The tithe apportionment records the buildings as a Homestead for Gullet Farm, occupied by Richard and John Garland and owned by William Mackworth Praed. At this time, the Garlands also farmed the adjacent Pool Parks Farm. Detached L-plan farm buildings are shown to the southeast on the tithe map, on the site of what is now Home Barn, and additional outlying barns are marked in the farmland, labelled as Higher Barn (to the southeast) and Poolpark Barn (east) on the First Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1888. By June 1911, Gullet and Pool Park, collectively “known as Gullet Farm”, were put up for auction. At that time, the holding included around 142 acres of land. The farmhouse had four bedrooms and a dairy, and the “Home Buildings” comprised a linhay, a barn, stables, piggeries and a poultry house (ref sales particulars).

In 1925, Ian MacDonald, grandson of celebrated Scottish poet and novelist George MacDonald (1824-1905), and his wife Helen Babbott MacDonald, from the Pratt family of New York who were partners in Standard Oil, bought the 155-acre peninsula, which included the farmhouse and farm estate. MacDonald commissioned Read and MacDonald of London, the former practice of his late father, Robert Falconer MacDonald (1862-1913), to renovate the farmhouse and Home Buildings and to modernise the farm. Further adaptations to the cottages were made from late 1927 (dated plans from October 1925 to 1928), however, in 1928 the farmhouse caught fire and was severely damaged. The house was rebuilt in accordance with plans and sketches by Herbert Read of Read and MacDonald from later that year, on a similar footprint to the previous house and dairy. The new building was constructed by Murch of Salcombe in brick and stone with Cotswold slate roofs and may have incorporated elements of the pre-fire structures. Further extensions and adaptations were made to Herbert Read designs following the birth of a son, Robert Ian MacDonald, in 1928. These works included the construction of further bedrooms at the east end of the house and the insertion of attic rooms in 1934/5. After Read’s death in 1935, Edward Guy Dawber was asked to redesign parts of the first floor.

In 1930, the Home Barn was rebuilt on the higher ground to the east of the house to entertain and accommodate the guests with a dining hall, a bedroom/ service wing and a detached laundry building, all designed in a sympathetic style. In addition to this group of buildings, formal gardens and a walled kitchen garden with glasshouses were commissioned from well-regarded specialists as part of the MacDonalds creation of a new country estate. A new entrance and driveway were laid from the road to South Pool along the estuary, with associated landscaping and estate cottages. The intention was likely to move the farming activity away from the farmhouse while a new home dairy farm and stables were built to the east of the gardens. A boat house and sea wall were constructed along the foreshore, with additional walls, steps and gates enhancing the gardens around the house. Plans for further improvements were curtailed by the outbreak of the Second World War, in which both of Ian and Helen MacDonald served.

From the mid-late-C20 the buildings were updated and improved under the ownership of their son, Robert Ian MacDonald, a businessman who operated a successful dairy herd on the farm and acquired further land on the north shore of South Pool Creek. In the early C21, the estate was sold. Improvements were made to the land drainage, and the house and Home Barn were renovated, along with alterations to the formal gardens.

Details

A small country house of 1928-1935, built to the designs of Read and MacDonald by Murch of Salcombe for Ian and Helen MacDonald on the site of a C17 farmhouse, and with C21 alterations; including entrance gates, piers, garden walls and steps, and a sea wall.

MATERIALS: constructed of brick and roughcast rendered with clay tile detailing, cast-iron rainwater goods and Cotswold slate roofs with stone stacks. Interior joinery is of oak and pine and includes a panelled entrance hall, panelled doors
(some with leaded glazing), chamfered ceiling beams and chimneypieces, all of 1930s date except for two C21 beams in oak casings in the kitchen. Windows throughout are leaded timber casements.

PLAN: on an east/west orientation facing north, the house has an evolved plan on the footprint of the earlier farmhouse and dairy, later extended to the west and, to the east, around an internal courtyard. The north wall of the kitchen was also extended by 1930. The house is of two storeys plus attic.

EXTERIOR: in the Arts and Crafts style with steep rendered gables with swept eaves, half-hips, neat dormers and substantial stone stacks in stone slate roofs, creating a playful arrangement across each elevation. The façade (north front) is on a varied building line, reflecting the phased evolution from a former farmhouse and detached dairy to a country house. The main entrance is slightly right of centre, beneath a stone-tiled porch with a studded oak door in a moulded oak frame. The rainwater hopper to its right is inscribed 1632-1927. The two bays to the right end are single storey with a parapet. The west end elevation opens onto a roof terrace and has central French doors with a bust to the gable. The rear (south) elevation is largely enclosed in a grass bank and has roofs with swept valleys enclosing an internal courtyard and infill covered by lead flat roofs. The east elevation has a gable to the left with a modest bow window, a lateral stack to the right, and a flat roofed projection between them. A low wall defines the north end of a garden terrace next to a lower-level service entrance, which is screened by a wall with tiled roof attached to northeast corner of the house.

INTERIOR: the entrance hall is oak panelled with a lateral oak staircase to the rear. To the right wall is a fireplace with a stop-chamfered oak chimneypiece and mantel with ‘IMcD’ engraved to the left spandrel and ‘HMcD’ to the right, and a tiled hearth. The drawing room has chamfered oak cross beams and a wide oak fireplace with tile detailing and a brick hearth. Behind the fireplace is a small room behind containing a bar servery. The kitchen (formerly the dining room), to the east of the hall, has been opened out to the rear and the fireplace removed. The former kitchen fireplace, with glazed tiles, is in situ in the room beyond. At the east end of the ground floor, service rooms, stores and a sitting room are arranged around an internal courtyard, where a C21 oak staircase has been inserted in the former scullery.

The first-floor layout largely reflects the 1935 plan, although some rooms have been reordered and new bathrooms inserted. In one case, a 1930s-bathroom suite has been relocated. Decorative timber and marble chimney pieces survive in the main bedrooms and study rooms, with glazed pictorial tilework to the children’s rooms, and more restrained designs to the former service west wing. Some original fitted cupboards remain, although most fittings are C21. Near the top of the main staircase, access to a glazed roof space is provided by a retractable 1930s loft ladder concealed within a fitted cupboard of the same date.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a curved rubblestone sea wall, with steps and slipway to the foreshore. The north end of the sea wall is attached to a garden wall and stone steps with rusticated stone balustrades to stone gate piers with iron gates at the driveway entrance. By the west end of the house is a further set of steps and a garden wall above the shore. At the opposite end of the driveway, where it meets the road to South Pool, stand similar round gate piers with conical caps, accompanied by a stone wall along the roadside that terminates at a matching pier with a conical capstone.

Sources

Websites
New York Times Death Notice, Macdonald, Robert Ian, 2014, accessed 28/05/2025 from https://archive.nytimes.com/query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage-9A0DE7D8113AF93BA25756C0A9629D8B63.html

Other
Gullet Farm Estate Papers of Ian MacDonald Esquire: Architect plans and sketches of 1927-35 by Read and MacDonald (Herbert Read); Architect plans and sketches of 1936 by E Guy Dawber.
Plan of the South Pool Estate, For Sale by Auction by Messrs. Rendell and Sawdye on Monday June12th 1911.
O'Brien, C, ROBERT FALCONER MACDONALD (1862-1913), 2025 (unpublished monograph)

End of official list entry