The Elmhirst Centre
From the sixteenth century until the mid 1970s these rooms were reserved for the personal use of the successive owners of Dartington Hall.
Little remains of the fourteenth century building and most of what can be seen is Elizabethan, with further additions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
This part of the Hall was renovated for The Elmhirsts by William Weir between 1928 and 1930. The restoration included replacing the Victorian windows, panelling the Morning Room in elm and replacing a conservatory with a loggia.
The Morning Room and the adjacent Study were, respectively, Dorothy and Leonard’s sitting rooms-cum-offices.The first floor comprised their bedroom suite and guest bedrooms. The upper floor was ‘the nursery’, providing a playroom and bedrooms for the Elmhirst children and their governess.
After Leonard’s retirement and move to the USA in the 1970s the former private house was converted (with Leonard’s wholehearted blessing) into the administrative centre for the Dartington Hall Trust, with offices and meeting rooms, and renamed the Elmhirst Centre.
Situated within the medieval courtyard, adjacent to the Great Hall the Elmhirst Centre is Grade I listed (click here to find out more about what listing means). Unfortunately there is no public access to this building.
Click here for a map.