Haldon House

[1] The surviving north wing of the house, comprising the entrance front of the stable block, consists of two cuboid lodges linked by a screen pierced by a Triumphal Arch,[3] with later additions,[1] and serves today as the "Lord Haldon Hotel".

[8] She married Sir John Chichester, 5th Baronet (1721-1784),[7] who already had a grand seat at Youlston Park in North Devon,[9] and sold Haldon to Mrs Anne Basset.

Polwhele also reported that Palk had covered the brick-built house with stucco[a] to give the effect that it was built of stone.

He had also added two "geometrical staircases" and laid a new floor in the hall made from red and yellow wood which he had "taken from the French at one of the sieges" in the East Indies.

[15] Major-General Stringer Lawrence (1697–1775) spent his retirement at Haldon House as a guest of Palk, his friend from Indian days.

[16] The house was visited by several notable people, including King George III (1760–1820), whom Sir Robert Palk escorted to view the Lawrence Tower along a specially made carriage drive.

[17] The later Palks did not spend much time at Haldon, preferring their properties in Torquay, the development of which town the family was deeply involved, or elsewhere.

[18] Lawrence Hesketh Palk was a keen gambler and had inherited the estate from his father with mortgage debts estimated at one stage to be £400,000.

[29] At the time of its demolition in 1925 the house had six reception rooms (sizes 30 by 20 feet, 22 by 30, 50 by 17+1⁄2, 28+1⁄2 by 18+1⁄2, 22 by 22+1⁄2 and one other), 38 bedrooms, a ballroom, theatre and chapel to seat 100.