Boringdon Hall

Boringdon Hall[1] is a 16th-century Grade I listed[2] manor house in the parish of Colebrook, about two miles north of Plympton, Devon.

Britton believed the main entrance porch, consisting of a semicircular arch with Norman-style cable mouldings, to be of ancient date, brought from some neighbouring church, or even Plympton Castle.

Due to subsequent alterations the building is difficult to date accurately, and Nikolaus Pevsner states it to be "irritating for the historian" as it incorporates a multitude of imported period features and materials, giving it "a superficially convincing instant patina".

The double-height great hall survives largely intact, and is situated to the left from the now-lost screens passage on entering the porch.

Many of the door-frames are of granite, yet are not in their original positions, for example that now forming the entrance to the great hall from the screens passage, which has been removed, was formerly in the south-east room, where it had been used as a fireplace.

[4][5] In about 956 the Saxon King Edgar (959–75) granted the royal manors of Boringdon and Wembury to Plympton Priory of St Peter.

During the Civil War the Parkers remained loyal to the King, and Cromwell's soldiers demolished the whole part of the house to the east of the entrance porch and screens passage, rebuilt in the 20th century.