Editing Powderham Castle (section)

==Description of interior==
[[File:Powderham Castle Staircase Hall.jpg|thumb|Staircase Hall, Powderham Castle]]
[[File:Powderham Castle Music Room 01.jpg|thumb|Music Room, Powderham Castle]]

The house is centred on the 14th- and 15th-century thickly-walled double-height rectangular building formerly comprising from north to south the withdrawing room, [[great hall]], [[Great Hall|screens passage]] and kitchens, which are now represented in the same orientation by the ante-room, Staircase hall, Marble hall and Victorian kitchen.

===Marble Hall===
The Marble Hall, named from its black and white [[marble]] floor, was completed in 1755 and forms the lower and southern part of the former medieval great hall, which was divided by an internal wall in the early 18th century into Staircase hall and Marble hall. Originally it was double height, as high as the staircase hall to the north, before the ceiling was added in the 18th century to form bedrooms above. At the same time the staircase was inserted into the upper part to form the staircase hall.

The screens passage was located in this end of the hall. The timber screen which formed the north side of the screens passage was demolished at the time of the partition, but three medieval Gothic-arched doorways through the south stone wall of the screens passage into the kitchen remain. A single more flatly arched doorway remains high up on the south wall, which formed the entrance to the wooden [[minstrels' gallery]] overhanging the great hall.<ref>Pevsner, p. 693.</ref>

The Marble Hall is used as a sitting room which has an 18th-century fireplace. Contents of the room include a {{convert|14|ft|m}} high [[longcase clock]] made about 1745 by [[William Stumbels]] of [[Totnes]]; a large 17th-century [[Brussels tapestry]] with rustic farm-yard scenery after [[David Teniers III|Teniers]] above the fireplace; and a 1553 carved wooden [[over-mantel]] decorated with the Courtenay arms. Two portraits of the present Earl of Devon and his wife hang on the north wall above the wooden panelling.

===Other===
The house has a mixture of medieval features and fine 18th-century decoration. Upstairs there is a [[narwhal]] tusk, sometimes said to be a [[unicorn horn]] able to detect poison.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ash |first=Russell |date=1973 |title=Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain |publisher=Reader's Digest Association Limited |page=161 |isbn=9780340165973 }}</ref>

===Memorial chimneypiece in Dining Hall===
[[File:Powderham Castle Dining Hall.jpg|thumb|upright|The heraldic chimneypiece (c. 1860) in the Dining Hall]]
[[William Courtenay, 11th Earl of Devon]] (d. 1888) installed a heraldic chimneypiece in the Dining Hall in memory of his grandfather [[Reginald Courtenay (Bishop of Exeter)|Reginald Courtenay]] (1741–1803), [[Bishop of Exeter]] from 1797 to 1803, and of his parents. The Dining Hall was built by his father [[William Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon]] (d. 1859) between 1847 and his death in 1859, and the 11th Earl completed the internal decorations in 1860, including the [[linen fold]] panelling containing several dozen ancestral heraldic shields.<ref>Powderham Castle guidebook, 2011, p. 10.</ref> It is copied from the medieval chimneypiece in the [[Bishop's Palace, Exeter]], installed c. 1485 by [[Peter Courtenay (bishop)|Peter Courtenay]] (d. 1492) [[Bishop of Exeter]], a younger son of Sir Philip Courtenay (1404–1463) of Powderham.<ref>Pevsner, N. Buildings of England: Devon. (see also mention in article [http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/john-coombe-fireplace-formerly-in.html])</ref> The armorials on the lowest row are from left to right:
*Arms of Bishop Reginald Courtenay: [[See of Exeter]] [[Impalement (heraldry)|impaling]] Courtenay (grandfather of 11th Earl of Devon)
*Arms of William Courtenay, 10th Earl of Devon (d. 1859), impaling the arms of his wife Hariet Leslie Pepys: Quarterly 1st & 4th: ''Sable, on a bend or between two nag's heads erased argent three fleurs-de-lis of the field''<ref>Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p. 287, Pepys, Earls of Cottenham.</ref> ([[Earl of Cottenham|Pepys, Baronets of Juniper Hill]]); 2nd & 3rd: ''Argent, on a bend azure three buckles or''<ref>Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p. 958.</ref> ([[Earl of Rothes|Leslie, Earls of Rothes]]). (Parents of 11th Earl of Devon). The supporters are two of the [[Bohun swan]]s, which bird was used by that family, from which came the wife of [[Hugh Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon]] (d. 1377), heiress of Powderham, as a heraldic badge. In the spandrels are two dolphins, a badge of the Courtenays. These arms can be seen on a brass plate on their monument in Powderham Church, itself a copy of the 15th-century Courtenay monument in [[Colyton, Devon|Colyton]] Church, [[Devon]].
*Arms of 11th Earl of Devon impaling arms of his wife Elizabeth Fortescue.

A further copy of the Courtenay Exeter Bishop's Palace chimneypiece can be found, in Italian grey marble, at [[Kentwell Hall]] in Suffolk, bearing the arms of the Clopton and Logan families.