About Us

The Dunmore Guest House has been a family business since 1987 owned by Mrs Alison Gilderthorp. The three storey houses in Blackall Road (which was named after Bishop Blackall) were built in 1890 as private homes. The Veitch Family originally owned the area. History of Blackall Road Area The Vietch Family who were nurserymen originally owned this red soil area and they were responsible for planting the trees which line the street. John Veitch was an apprentice gardener who left Scotland to work in a London nursery in 1768. He soon moved to Devon, where he designed and worked on the gardens at Killerton before establishing his own nursery in Exeter. The Veitch family's nurseries spanned three centuries, and contributed significantly to horticultural history. The family decided during the 1850s to move their headquarters to London's Chelsea neighborhood, where they could take advantage of a larger market and provide rare, exotic, and expensive plants to the newly monied building country houses near London.

The University of Exeter was originally a property called Streatham Farm belonging to the Reed family. The old home, known as Reed Hall, now has a room within called the Veitch Room, honouring the Veitch name as many of the trees in the Reed Hall's gardens were collected by the Veitch Family in the Victorian era.

The Veitches introduced the first orchid hybrids and numerous new species grew in the parks of Capability Brown, the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll. Much of the family history vanished when many of its private papers were lost or destroyed. In1969 Mildred Veitch sold the Exeter nursery.

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