Starcross History Society: Research: Cockwood House

Saturday, 10 September 2016

Research: Cockwood House

Eastdon Hamlet and the elusive Cockwood House by Tricia Whiteaway

The story of Cockwood House once the residence of Rev. D Drury headmaster of Harrow, and of neighbouring Eastdon House, the home of Richard Eales

£2.00 + p&p from the Dawlish Local History Group via the link above

Photographer Adrian Wood has kindly provided a photograph of a stone wall along Cockwood which inludes some dressed stones

Dawlish Museum have enquired. They write

" No luck with an answer here at the Museum I'm afraid. The book says Cockwood House is believed to have been demolished shortly after 1841 but ends with the same question -'to date we still have not found the site of the main house so it is thought that all the stone has been robbed- but on a walk to Dawlish Warren the front hedges to a couple of houses have at their base very similar stones. Could they have come from Cockwood House,one wonders ?"

In Brunel's Atmospheric Railway featuring the contemporary watercolours of William Dawson, - section 9 from Cockwood Lake to the Warren - shows the ruins of Cockwood House; near the river, to the West of Eastdon House.

This book is available online for over £50, but may still be bought from the Newton Abbot Town and Great Western Railway Museum for just £20. Isambard Kingdom Brunel may bring some copies to our meet this Wednesday.

A trawl of the newspaper archives has produced the following results: