Stover, Teigngrace

Stover House, south front, now mostly obscured by the porte-cochere built after 1829

Stover House, west front

Stover Lake, an ornamental lake on the Stover estate which also serves to drain the lower lying areas

Stover Quarry, a claypit on the Stover estate

Stover in the parish of Teigngrace, Devon, is a historic estate. The Georgian mansion house known as Stover House was built between 1776 and 1780 by James I Templer (1722–1782), a self-made magnate who made his fortune building dockyards, and is now occupied by Stover House School, a private school. 114 acres of the former estate situated south of the A38 and comprising woodland, heathland, grassland, marsh and Stover Lake, now forms the "Stover Country Park", a nature reserve owned and managed by Devon County Council and open to public access.^[1] The "Templer Way" is an 18 mile long public footpath and cycleway between Haytor on Dartmoor and Teignmouth on the south coast which follows the route of the Haytor Granite Tramway and the Stover Canal, both built by the Templer family of Stover for the purpose of exporting granite quarried on Dartmoor.^[2]

Stover House is a Grade II* listed building.^[3] The parkland and gardens are Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.^[4]

Stover House

Stover House was built between 1776-80 by James I Templer (1722–1782), a self-made magnate who made his fortune building dockyards, possibly to his own design.^[5] Probably at some time after 1829^[6] the south face was given an addition of a huge porte-cochere which obscures much of the building, and which contains under a classical portico of Doric columns a curved double flight of balustraded stairs. The large stable block is situated to the west of the house. In the garden are a small classical temple and a grotto. The grand entrance gate with Doric columns is situated on the busy A38 main road and was probably built at the same time as the porte-cochere, to which it is similar in style.^[7]

Descent

Templer

Arms of Templer: On a mount in base vert the perspective of an antique temple argent of three stories, each embattled; from the second battlement two steeples, [sic] and from the top, one, each ending in a cross sable [sic] on the pinnacle; in the first quarter an eagle displayed; in the second a stag trippant regardant or

• James I Templer (1722–1782), who in 1765 purchased the manor of Teignrace and Stover Lodge, which in 1780 he re-built in grander form on a nearby site as Stover House. He married Mary Parlby (d.1784), the sister of his business partner Thomas Parlby and daughter of John Parlby of Chatham, Kent.
• James II Templer (1748–1813), eldest son and heir, who built the Stover Canal in 1792. In 1786, together with his two brothers, he rebuilt St Peter and St Paul's Church,^[8] the parish church of Teigngrace, as a memorial to his parents,^[9] which contains many mural monuments to the Templer family. He married Mary Buller, 3rd daughter of James Buller (1717-1765)^[10] of Downes, Crediton and King's Nympton Park, Member of Parliament for East Looe in Cornwall (1741-7) and for the County of Cornwall (1748-1765).
• George Templer (1781–1843), eldest son and heir, who inherited the Stover estate. He overspent his resources and in 1829 was forced to sell Stover House, Stover Canal, the Haytor Granite Tramway and most of the rest of the family's considerable estates to Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset.

Seymour

Arms of the Seymour Dukes of Somerset: Quarterly, 1st and 4th: Or, on a pile gules between six fleurs de lys azure three lions of England (special grant to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (c. 1500–1552)); 2nd and 3rd: Gules, two wings conjoined in lure or (Seymour)^[11]

• Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset (1775-1855) purchased Stover in 1829. It remained in the ownership of his family until 1921. His ancestor Lord Edward Seymour (d.1593) had acquired the feudal barony of Berry Pomeroy, the caput of which was Berry Pomeroy Castle, near Totnes, close to Stover. Thus Stover served as a useful residence from which to oversee his large estates in South Devon. The principal seat of the Seymour family had been Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire, but thenceforth it became Stover,^[12] where the valuable "Hamilton" art collection was housed by the 11th Duke, brought to the family as her marriage portion by his wife Lady Charlotte Hamilton, a daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton. This included paintings by Rubens, Lawrence and Reynolds.^[13]
• Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset (1804-1885), KG, son and heir, who died at Stover House. He served as First Lord of the Admiralty, Member of Parliament for Okehampton (1830-1) and for Totnes (1834–55), both in Devon, and as Lord Lieutenant of Devon (1861–85). He was predeceased by both his sons, so the dukedom passed under law to his younger brother Archibald Seymour, 13th Duke of Somerset, but the 12th Duke deprived him of as many material possessions as possible. The 12th Duke's relatives considered that he had married beneath his social station, and relationships had become strained. The 13th Duke described his elder brother's wife Georgiana Sheridan as a "low-bred greedy beggar woman, whose sole object was to get her hands on the property and leave it away from the direct heirs". The 12th Duke thus bequeathed Stover and its priceless contents, including the Hamilton treasures, in trust for his illegitimate grandson Harold St. Maur, which caused uproar on the part of the 13th Duke, who considered the treasures to be family heirlooms which should have passed to him. He inherited Maiden Bradley House, presumably under an entail, but almost entirely stripped of its contents. The trustee was the 12th Duke's son-in-law Lord Henry Thynne, son of the Marquess of Bath, who sold much of the Stover estate and all of the Hamilton treasures while the beneficiaries were still under-age.^[14]
• Maj. Harold St. Maur (1869-1927), illegitimate grandson, JP DL, of Horton, Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire,^[15] was the eldest but illegitimate son of Edward Seymour, Earl St Maur (1835-1869), son and heir apparent of Edward Seymour, 12th Duke of Somerset (1804-1885), whom he predeceased. Harold St. Maur inherited Stover in 1885 on the death of his grandfather the 12th Duke. He served as a member of Newton Abbot Urban District Council and was briefly a Liberal Member of Parliament for Exeter, before being unseated on an election petition by a single vote. He was an unsuccessful claimant to the Dukedom of Somerset. He served in the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry^[16] and fought in the Boer War at Natal with the 7th Remounts and the Royal 1st Devon Imperial Yeomanry. He was awarded the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre with palms. He was Master of the South Devon Foxhounds for many years and in 1894 created a golf course on the Stover estate, now the "Stover Golf Club".^[17] He was the Seymour family historian and author of Annals of the Seymours (1902).^[18] At the start of World War I, Stover House was opened as a hospital for injured soldiers, Mrs St Maur being a former nurse acting as Lady Superintendent, but closed a year later.^[19] He sold Stover and moved to Kenya where he died in 1927, leaving three sons.^[20] His mural monument survives in Teigngrace church inscribed:

"In loving memory of Lt. Col. Richard Harold St Maur of Stover. Late 14th Kings Hussars and Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry served in South African war 1900 and in the Great War 1914 to 1919, Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, Liaison Officer between field Marshal Sir Edmund Allenby and the French Forces. Officer de la Legion d'honneur et le croix de Guerre avec trois palmes. Born 6th June 1869 - Died 5th April 1927 at Kipipiri British East Africa"^[21]

Stover School

In 1932 it became the Stover School, which occupies it still in 2012.^[22]

References

1. http://www.devon.gov.uk/stover_country_park.htm
2. http://www.devon.gov.uk/templer_way
3. Historic England. "Stover House (1334127)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
4. Historic England. "Stover Park (1001268)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 12 February 2016.
5. Pevsner, Nikolaus & Cherry, Bridget, The Buildings of England: Devon, London, 2004, p.768
6. Pevsner, p.768
7. Pevsner, p.769
8. Pevsner, p.793
9. Per inscribed stone tablet in entrance hall of church
10. Burke's, 1937, p.278, pedigree of Buller of Downes
11. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.1036
12. Masters, Brian, The Dukes: Origin, Ennoblement and History of 26 Families, 1980, p.50
13. Masters, Brian, The Dukes, p.49
14. Masters, Brian, The Dukes, p.56
15. The Complete Peerage vol.XIIpI, p.87, note e.
16. The Times, obit. 13 April 1927
17. http://www.stovergolfclub.co.uk/#!club-history/cgfn
18. St Maur, Harold, Annals of the Seymours, Being a History of the Seymour Family, From Early Times to Within a Few Years of the Present, London, 1902 The author was the illegitimate grandson of the 12th Duke of Somerset, from whom he inherited the estate of Stover, Teigngrace in Devon
19. http://www.brixhamheritage.org.uk/wir/Great_War_Poetry-Part2.pdf
20. Masters, Brian, The Dukes, p.57
21. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sic_itur_ad_astra/8790204908/
22. http://www.templerfamily.co.uk/Templer%20Trees/GEDmill_Output/indiI0728.html

External links

• http://www.teigngracevillage.co.uk/church/church.htm
• http://www.stover.co.uk/contact/ (Stover School website)

Coordinates: 50°33′22″N 3°38′28″W / 50.5560°N 3.6411°W