Its origins are older but the present building was constructed for Robert William Newman, an Exeter merchant, in 1827–1833 by Anthony Salvin.

[7] In the early 21st century the house, again privately owned, operated as an events and wedding venue,[8] hosting the second marriage of Peter Andre in 2015.

[7] Pevsner describes Mamhead as establishing "Salvin as the chief architect of his time for large country houses in the Tudor style".

[2] Pevsner suggests that they were influenced by the decorative schemes for the Houses of Parliament being planned at the same time, of which Sir Robert would have been aware, having been elected M.P.

[13] Salvin's biographer, Jill Allibone, suggests the Temple of British Worthies at Stowe as the statues' most obvious ancestor, and writes of their "scandalous removal" and sale in the 1980s.

[15] Simon Jenkins notes that the staircase in the gallery is recorded as being based on the external stair designed by James Wyatt for Canterbury Quadrangle at Christ Church, Oxford.

[2] The conservatory, which adjoins the house, is surmounted by a parapet decorated with "an ingeniously apt quotation" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Romaunt of the Rose: "Flouris yelowe white and rede / Such plenty grewe there ner in mede".

[e] The 1960s edition of Pevsner also suggested that it was constructed on the site of a genuine medieval castle, but this is contested[20] and the 2004 revised Devon does not repeat the claim.

[25] Pevsner describes Dawlish and Forest Gate lodges as "very pretty examples, Salvin trimmings added to plain 18th century boxes".