AN HISTORIC gatehouse on the edge of the A38 is to be restored.

Stover Gatehouse, which can be seen near the Drumbridges Roundabout at Heathfield, has fallen into disrepair after years of neglect. So much so, that the Grade 2* listed building has been placed on Historic England’s ‘At Risk’ register.

In 1829, George Templer sold the house and estate to Edward Adolphus Seymour, the 11th Duke of Somerset, and in 1832, he had the Granite lodge constructed at the start of the carriage drive. This was then the principal entrance to the estate from which there was a 1.5 mile route through the grounds to the house.

Over a long period of neglect, the Georgian building, with its distinctive Doric columns has become overgrown with weeds and cracks in the structure have appeared. Its windows have been blocked up and wooden doors replaced with steel ones.

The new proposals include carrying out structural repairs, tree removal, the reinstatement of gates and railings, and return to more appropriate windows and doors.

By 2015, urgent temporary works saw the installation of the steel doors in place of solid masonry blocking and the following year further urgent works were carried out to the roof. However, further works were still needed to address the remaining maintenance requirements and defects.

In 2020 a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant was awarded to develop proposals to address these issues, as well as further opportunity works to enhance the asset. These woks became part of ‘Restoring Stover Park’, a £4m capital and engagement project. Consequently, a multi-disciplinary consultant team was appointed by Devon County Council to manage the proposals.

On the front elevation there is diagonal cracking across the corners of three granite blocks just below the decorative pediment and further cracking to the head of one of the square corner columns.

The proposed works comprise fixing gutters and carrying out repairs to the roof itself; fixing soakaways and drainage; repairing vertical cracks and removing vegetation growing into the walls. Inside, they propose to replace the gypsum-based plaster with more appropriate lime plaster; taking out the suspended floor timbers in the south-west lodge (left hand looking towards the A38) and replacing it with a beam and block concrete floor.

Apart from the building itself, the rusty and broken railings will receive a complete overhaul. The blocked-up windows with their trompe l’oeil appearance will be replaced with sash windows, and steel doors will be replaced with traditional wooden ones – old photos will provide a guide as to how they originally appeared.

There are also hopes to use the South-West lodge as an interpretation space, though consideration needs to be given to security, as the space been subject to vandalism in the past.

To view and comment on the proposals online, go to the Teignbridge Planning Portal and quote reference 22/01110/LBC.