Stover, Teigngrace

Stover is a historic estate in the parish of Teigngrace, about halfway between the towns of Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracey in South Devon, England.

114 acres of the former estate situated south of the A38 now forms Stover Country Park, a nature reserve owned and managed by Devon County Council and open to the public.

However, he was not a successful businessman and in 1829 was forced to sell Stover House, the canal, the tramway and most of the rest of the family's considerable estates to Edward St Maur, 11th Duke of Somerset.

In around 1830 a large porte-cochere of Portland stone was added to the south face of Stover House; it contains under a classical portico of Doric columns a curved double flight of balustraded stairs.

[10] The grand entrance gate to the estate has Doric columns and was probably built at the same time as the porte-cochere, to which it is similar in style.

Due to this family rift, the 12th Duke deprived him of as many material possessions as possible and 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.

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.

[d] At the start of World War I, Stover House was opened as a hospital for injured soldiers with Mrs St Maur, being a former nurse, acting as Lady Superintendent; but it closed just a year later.

This continued into the 20th century, when the Forestry Commission acquired the woodland around Stover Lake for commercial timber production.

[2] 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.

West front of Stover House, showing the porte-cochere of c.1830 on the right
Arms of the Templer family [ a ]
The entrance gate (rear view)
Stover Lake, an ornamental lake on the Stover estate which also serves to drain the lower lying areas