Fern Leat and Orchard Dene, The Glen and The Butts Chaloner’s Road Braunton

Along the route of the Tarka Trail stand a group of impressive houses, Fern Leat and Orchard Dene, together with The Glen and The Butts of similar style. These houses have full sets of sliding sash windows with segmental upper sashes and large panes of sheet glass in the lower panes. Large chimney stacks with multiple flues are also apparent demonstrating that almost every room in these buildings would have had its own fire and changing the character of chimneys from robust stone stacks to more elegant and proportioned elements of the building. The buildings were built around 1916 designed by the local architect E.A.C. Schwabe and built by local builder J.J.Huxtable. The site had formally been an orchard. These buildings also have cast iron railings enclosing their front gardens, probably brought in by rail from foundries in Barnstaple. Now that the village had a rail link materials could be brought in cheaply from further afield meaning that the local stone was no longer the only economical material for boundary features.

Reference           Braunton Conservation Area Character Appraisal, North Devon Council page 22-23