Sidbury Manor is a privately owned 19th-century country mansion situated at Sidbury,

Sidmouth Sidmouth () is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, southeast of Exeter. With a population of 13,258 in 2021, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town has ...

, East Devon. It is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. Built in 1879, the country house is a red brick building with a slate roof, including two towers, one square and the other octagonal. It is owned by the Cave baronets.

House

The original house at Sidbury was built in 1633, and was owned by the Guppy family. When the house burned down in the middle of the 19th century, the estate was sold to Cave family, who still own the house today. The present house was built in 1879, designed by David Brandon. It is a 2-story redbrick country house, cornered with

hamstone Hamstone is a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material which weather dif ...

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

. The roof is slate, with Jacobean chimneys. The entrance is on the eastern aspect of the building, which also includes an octagonal tower. The tower has gargoyles in the shapes of dogs and griffins, as well as a lead roof topped by a weather vane. The entrance has a stone gable topped with a lion and

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

. There is a 2 bay arcade with diamond block piers and 4 arches, which is then repeated in the conservatory which has a stone faced front. The conservatory's roof is supported by cast iron columns. The house has a second square tower with a French roof, and second weathervane. The house was designated Grade II listed status on 12 November 1973. David Cave of Cleve Hill, Gloucestershire, acquired land in and about fashionable Sidmouth in the mid-1800s. His son Rt Hon Stephen Cave was Member of Parliament for New Shoreham 1859 -1880 and was twice

Postmaster General A Postmaster General, in Anglosphere countries, is the chief executive officer of the postal service of that country, a ministerial office responsible for overseeing all other postmasters. History The practice of having a government official ...

. Cave who died in 1880 never lived there but bequeathed the house and the estate of some 3800 acres to his younger brother Charles who in 1896 was created the first of the Cave baronets.

References

{{coord, 50.7270, -3.2292, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title, format=dms Country houses in Devon Grade II listed buildings in Devon Houses completed in 1879 Manor houses in England Sidmouth