At the tender age of six, Mark George Kerr Trefusis inherited the vast Rolle Estates in North and South Devon. As Mark Rolle, he became one of the foremost benefactors in the country. His benefactions were spread wide, but nowhere is their enduring legacy more evident than in the Lower Otter Valley. The most significant imprint he left on the countryside lies in the farms he built or modified, and the numerous cottages he provided.

To mark the new millennium, the Otter Valley Association decided to make a photographic record of the Mark Rolle buildings within its area, the heart of the Rolle estate in South Devon. The project then expanded to include an exhibition of selected photographs in the summer of 2002, and an illustrated book, “Mark Rolle: His Architectural Legacy in the Lower Otter Valley”.

The Association has been able to carry out this programme with the help of a Local Heritage Initiative Grant. The Local Heritage Initiative was developed by the Countryside Agency, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Nationwide Building Society. The Association is most grateful to these sponsors.

The Estate which Mark Trefusis inherited in 1842, as tenant-for-life, from his aunt’s husband John, Baron Rolle, was a rich inheritance. It ran to nearly 55,600 acres, part in North Devon and part in the South of the county. As a condition of the inheritance, the young Mark was required to change his surname to Rolle (which he duly did in 1852), and live part of each year in the family mansions at Stevenstone in the North, and Bicton in the South. These residence conditions were relaxed by The Rolle Estate Act of 1865, whose main purpose was however to give him a freer hand in managing the Estate.

This was the period of Victorian High Farming. Everywhere, owners of broad acres were busy improving their estates. Not that this was a particularly profitable investment. Considerable capital had to be raised, often by borrowing. Rental income was hardly commensurate with the outlay, especially when agriculture fell into decline from about 1875 onwards. Tenant farmers struggled, often unsuccessfully, to pay the rent.

It was, however, for many landowners, “the thing to do”, motivated partly from a genuine desire to improve the livelihood of the tenant farmers and labourers on their estates, and also from a desire to hand on an improved inheritance to the next generation.

The surviving Mark Rolle buildings can be identified from certain characteristic architectural features. Once alerted to these, anyone exploring the Lower Otter Valley soon begins to recognize them as one recognizes an old friend. Although the farm buildings show only subtle differences from those that preceded them, the cottages have a delightful exuberance of variety and elaboration.

The most noticeable feature is the incorporation of a stone, prominently displayed in the gables of many of the buildings, bearing the bold initials MR and the date. Apart from this “signature” stone, the best evidence for Mark Rolle identification is the presence of distinctive corbels at the gables. The book lists 87 buildings built, added to or altered during this time.

Mark Rolle left an architectural legacy that merits our admiration and protection. Indeed, the legacy might well serve as an example to us. The use of local materials, the inventiveness, the variety and the element of fun, which stops short of whimsicality; these are qualities well worth striving to emulate in the buildings of today.

Copies of “Mark Rolle: His Architectural Legacy in the Lower Otter Valley” are available from local bookshops at £4.95 or by mail order.