Repaired Farm Building at Lupton House in Devon to Have a New Community Use
A local contractor has recently completed the urgent repairs the so-called calves' house at Lupton, enabling the Lupton Trust to progress a community project in the historic farmstead.
The range of Grade II listed 19th-century farm buildings at Lupton was to be the home of a community garden project until one of the structures – the calves’ house – became unstable in 2022 and was fenced off.
The Lupton Trust’s volunteer-run garden project began during the COVID-19 pandemic. It quickly became vitally important to the community as local people experienced loneliness and lost support as charities went into lockdown.
Due to its success, the project continued after the pandemic. Volunteers supplied plants, garden furniture and equipment to help the project thrive, while visitors to Lupton House and the Coach House Café bought plants in support of the scheme.
The Trust planned to develop the project further but had to pause when the calves’ house started to deteriorate.
Historic England awarded emergency funding to repair the 2-storey structure in December 2023. Local contractors Riviera Stone Masons completed the repairs in March 2024.
Now that the calves’ house has been repaired, we can really focus on our community garden project once more. We would love to bring more people together through a shared love of nature, and with their support, we can reopen the plant centre and establish many more volunteering opportunities to support it.
Lupton dates back to 1086, when the first acres of woodland were documented in the Domesday Survey, making it one of the oldest historic sites in Torbay.
Lupton House was built by Charles Hayne, Sheriff of Devon, in 1769 and was altered and expanded by George Wightwick in 1843.
A revolution in agriculture
The period between 1750 and 1880 brought about major developments in farmstead plans and buildings to improve animal welfare standards and increase productivity for the growing population.
At Lupton, a single range of buildings is laid out around a courtyard and brings together several functions, a design often used to promote efficiency.
The calves’ house, cow shed and piggery housed animals over winter, with passages and stores to keep their food close by and a separate dung yard, where manure for all-important fertiliser could be collected.
Complete planned, or model, farmsteads of this period are nationally important and are normally listed where they survive in good condition. The farm buildings at Lupton were listed at Grade II in 1949.
The Lupton Trust
After it went out of use as a family home, Lupton House was a base for US service personnel in the Second World War and from 1956 it was used as a school. The last school, Gramercy Hall School, closed in 2004.
The site was taken on by the Lupton Trust in 2008. It now operates as a venue and as a base for health and wellbeing activities.
It is also the home of Four Seasons, a Community Interest Company (CIC) providing work, employment and life skills training for people with disabilities, and Orchard Forest School, which offers opportunities to explore and connect with the tranquil ancient orchard setting.
Lupton House is listed at Grade II* and the gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Both are on the Heritage at Risk Register.
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