The Chanter’s House, The College, Ottery St Mary, Devon

Butterfield was introduced to Sir John Duke Coleridge by Sir John’s brother Edward, a house master at Eton resulting in his commission for the restoration of Ottery parish church and his inclusion in the family circle. John Duke Coleridge enjoyed a highly successful career at the bar and in 1880 was made Lord Chief Justice of England. With his new rank his thoughts turned to the creation of a country seat by the rebuilding of the family home at Ottery which he had inherited in 1876. Following the sudden death of his wife Jane Fortesque Seymour Coleridge in 1878, he eventually asked Butterfield for the drawings in 1880. Lady Coleridge’s portrait of Butterfield hangs in the outer hall.

The work Butterfield undertook at Chanter’s House delighted the Coleridge family. In a lecture published in 1881 on the restoration, John Duke Coleridge praised ‘’his great skills and abilities and the masculine severity of his taste.’’ This was Butterfield’s second and last substantial country house commission, (the first being Milton Ernst Hall in Bedfordshire for his brother-in-law in 1854-1858). At the Chanters House, only the kernel of the original Georgian house was retained - the dining room, old library and drawing room. The 1840’s service wing was demolished to be replaced by extensive new stables and service quarters which formed the north side of an L-shaped forecourt. The entrance was moved to the east and the old south facing main façade with an extra storey added, became the garden flank. The entire west wing is taken up at ground floor level by a huge library, designed to accommodate Lord Coleridge’s 18,000 books.