Bell Down and Miss Preston at Burrow House in 1912.
We are often offered objects and photos that are still precious to people, but which they can no longer look after. Museums have an important role as custodians of local family history as well as places where curios and collections are looked after. We were donated some mementos of the Down family of Ilfracombe back in the summer, and the photos in this little collection have breathed new life into the family’s connection with Burrow House, a now-demolished grand residence that once stood in the midst of town.The Ilfracombe architect Allen Hussell wrote in 1937 that Burrow House was one of the few fine early Georgian residences left in the town, standing on the high point of large grounds that were approached by imposing Bath stone pillars topped by boar’s heads, with a driveway that he thought was one of the most imposing in all of Devon. As you went up the carriage drive to the house at the top, you would pass on your left fish ponds and a grotto, with ornamental trees to the right screening a walled kitchen garden beyond. Next to this garden were tennis courts, and on the left of the drive, a summer house. Finally you would approach the house itself from across a carefully kept lawn and naturally landscaped gardens.
The boar’s heads on the gate pillars were probably installed by one of the earlier owners of Burrow House, Thomas Tordiffe. By 1844 Mr Tordiffe was in residence, and he lived here with his family for almost twenty years. We don’t know when the original house was built, but we do know that nearby Burrow Lodge- built by Admiral James Bowen for his daughters in 1816 – was probably a later building. In the 18th century this whole parcel of land was known as the Burrows, and was owned by the Bowen family until parts of it were gradually sold off over time.
In the 1840s, when Thomas Tordiffe arrived in Ilfracombe, the town was becoming a popular resort for the better-off, and social life for the upper classes in Ilfracombe society revolved around the church and social functions at the Assembly Rooms. Thomas was originally from Staffordshire, and got his income from land and investments, and in 1836 he married Joyce Chanter, the brother of Ilfracombe clergyman John Mill Chanter. The 1851 census shows him living here with Joyce and their four children. It is said that Mr Tordiffe kept a pack of hounds at the house, and the boar’s head design on the gates was probably his family emblem.
It seems that Thomas Tordiffe and his family left Ilfracombe by 1860, and in 1871 the house was bought by John Down, after he received a large inheritance. The Down family owned property elsewhere in Ilfracombe, and like the Bowens, had naval connections. John died in 1877 and his two unmarried daughters carried on living in Burrow House for many years. The photo above shows one of them, Arabella Down or ‘Bell’, with a friend, posing on the carriage drive 1912. Along with her sister Margaret, they became joint inheritors of the estate and lived together at the house, but they were very different characters. Margaret, who died in 1906, was a skilled woodcarver who made some of the roof bosses in Holy Trinity church, along with her friend Miss Gilbert. But Bell was headstrong, and is said to have spent some of her youth in California where she learned to ride on ranches and carry a pistol! She moved to London after the First World War, and lived as an eccentric recluse until finally returning to a nursing home in Ilfracombe, where she died in 1940.
Burrow House as Adelaide College girls’ school.
By this time, Burrow House had been sold. In fact it was put up for auction in 1916 by Miss Down. It was then turned into the girls’ school Adelaide House with the grounds used for playing fields. In 1964 the school closed and was bought by Devon County Council, who decided to demolish it to make room for housing and an old peoples’ home, also known as Burrow House. So sadly, we lost a fine Regency building and its gardens, with no trace left of it, except it survives in photographs such as these.
