![]() |
Arlington Court |
Arlington Court is a Neoclassical house near Barnstaple in North Devon. The stables are home to the National Trust Carriage Museum.
![]() |
The stables, Arlington Court |
The Arlington estate was owned by the Chichester family who had been wealthy Devonshire landowners since the 14th century. They supported the King during the Civil War and had a strong Catholic heritage. A Georgian house was built at Arlington in the early 1790s and a second Georgian house, in the Neo-classical style, was built in the 1820s. It is this house that still stands today.
The estate was given to the National Trust by Miss Rosalie Chichester in 1949.
The Georgian connection
Colonel John Palmer Chichester (1769-1823)
Colonel Chichester married Mary Anne Cary in 1790 and commissioned a fashionable Georgian mansion to be built at Arlington to replace the Tudor manor house he had inherited.
![]() |
A View of Arlington Court and St James' Church Tower from the Park by Maria Pixell (1797) |
By the early 1820s, it became apparent that the Colonel’s Georgian house had structural issues and he commissioned the architect Thomas Lee to build him a new house in the Neo-classical style. This house was completed in 1823, but sadly Colonel Chichester died the same year and never lived in it.
Sir John Palmer Bruce Chichester (1794-1851)
![]() |
Sir John Palmer Bruce Chichester |
![]() |
The Morning Room, Arlington Court |
What can you see today?
• The Neo-classical frontage of Arlington Court
![]() |
Arlington Court |
• Snuffboxes and other items from Miss Chichester's collections
• The ceiling in the White Drawing Room
• The National Trust's collection of carriages (in the stables)
![]() |
Travelling chariot in the National Trust Carriage Museum, Arlington Court |
Sources used include:
Badcock, Marigold, Gibbons, David and Parker-Williams, Demelza, Arlington Court and the National Trust Carriage Museum, National Trust Guide (2009)
All photographs © Andrew Knowles - www.flickr.com/photos/dragontomato
I'm assuming that Sir Francis was descende from Sir Jack a couple of old salts
ReplyDeleteActually, no. Sir Francis was descended from the Chichester Baronets of Raleigh whilst Sir John Chichester was a Chichester Baronet of Arlington Court which was a separate creation. The families were connected by marriage - Sir John's son's widow, Rosalie, married Sir Arthur Chichester, 8th Baronet, Sir Francis' grandfather - but there was no blood relationship.
Delete