Sept. 8.-Mamhead; Sir Robert Newman, Bart. This is an extensive place, with the house situated on the projecting swell of an elevated ridge crowned with wood. The views from the house, over a rich valley, are extensive and magnificent, commanding Exeter, the river, and the hilly country beyond. The approach is of considerable length, and appears judiciously conducted; but, as we were in a close carriage, we were not able to form a decided judgement on this point. This we can say, that, immediately within the entrance, we passed through a grove of Scotch firs of twenty or thirty years' growth, with the stems naked, or showing only dead branches to a great height, of no great value to any estate, either in an ornamental or useful point of view. We would cut down almost the whole of these trees, and allow the self-sown hollies, every where springing up, to form, with a few scattered trees of such kinds as may be already grown up, an evergreen wood. The house is most judiciously placed. In style, it is exteriorly in a sort of modernised Tudor-Gothic, while the stable offices form a separate group in an early castellated manner, with battlements and a portcullis appearing over the main gateway. The idea of this difference of style between the offices and the mansion, the former being intended to represent the ancient castle metamorphosed into stables, and the actual dwelling-house being supposed to be a comparatively modern building, is good on paper as a theory, but is here carried rather too far; a portcullis, in good repair, being shown over the modern stable gates. The great difference in style is aggravated by the colour of the stone; which in the offices is nearly of a brick red, coarsely hewn, and in the mansion is of a light Bath-like stone, quite smooth. Independently altogether of antiquarian and architectural associations, the red colour of the offices, in artists' language, kills that of the mansion. Had both been of the same colour, the objections we have suggested would not have been nearly so strong. We could almost wish that the house had been of red stone, for we think it would have gone far to prevent an idea which arose in our minds at first sight, that the house was too ornamental and villa-like for the grandeur of the situation. Fortunately, there are no large trees close to it, otherwise it would appear too low.
