The tale of Lupton House goes back to before 1772 when the building we see today was constructed. An early construction of the house included a private chapel and was built for an Elias Pennyls and his wife Margaret. This was named the Chapel of St. Katherine and was built in 1408. On December 19th, 1409 they received a license to worship and were given an oratory to be made in the chapel. Sadly, there is no trace of this chapel at this present day. Also, during our research, it appears that an even earlier chapel had been built in the grounds in 1317.

The house had also been owned by John Peverell who had left the residence to his sister Agnes. She, in turn, married a gentleman called John Upton. The Upton family settled there around 1480 and eventually the name of the place was given up to that of the new family whose estates would be written in Normal French as L'Uptons.

In 1763 Churston was owned by Francis Yarde of Churston Court and his daughter, Suzanne Yarde, married Francis Buller. Suzanne and Francis did not inherit Churston direction from her father, but from John Yarde who was the last male heir of the family. He was Suzanne's uncle, the eldest brother of Francis Yarde. Although she inherited Churston Court her husband, the judge, bought a larger residence from Charles Mayne in 1788 - Lupton House. As a consequence of this he aquired a half share, along with the owner of Greenway, the Lordship of the Manor of Brixham.

Lupton House, in its present state, had been built by Charles Mayne just 16 years earlier in 1772. In 1843 the house underwent extensive remodelling, its design changing to a neo-classic style. This work was carried out by George Wightwick for Sir John Yarde-Buller. Further alterations were made in the 1860's. John Yarde-Buller was the son of Francis and Suzanne and had inherited his fathers baronetcy and entered Parliament two years later as MP for South Devon. He held his seat for 24 years until he retired in 1858 upon which he was raised to the peerage as Baron Churston of Churston Ferres and Lupton. In 1860 the lengthy surname was reduced by Royal License and Lord Churston and his issue were allowed to drop the prefix to become Yarde-Buller as it is known to this day.

In 1926 Lupton House was the Devon seat of John Reginald Lopes Yarde-Buller, 3rd Baron of Churston. It was during his residence to the building that it was to suffer a great fire on the top floor, completely destroying it and ultimately causing it to be lost when the house was restored - hence why today Lupton House only has two levels. Below is a short newspaper article taken from a local newspaper just after the fire occured.

At the time some of the family heirlooms were saved from the blaze and stored in a nearby barn. Unfortunately these were to be destroyed in a second fire in 1928. It is not known why these two blazes started, although electrical faults have been suggested. Interestingly, at the time of the second fire it was the ninth famous country house to be destroyed by fire in a matter of just a few months.

In September 1930 Brixham received a new lifeboat which was later named in honour of Sir George Shee, Secretary of the RNLI from 1910 to 1931. When he was asked to present a boat to one of six possible places Sir George chose Brixham as a compliment to the outstanding seamanship of its lifeboatsmen. At the time the Prince of Wales was president of the RNLI and was invited by H.M. Smardon to officially launch the new boat, an invitation that was accepted. The photo on the left shows the Prince, closely followed behind by H.M. Smardon, inspecting the crew of the new Brixham lifeboat. On the 27th July, 1932 the Prince lunched at Lupton House with Lord Churston, Bishop Cecil of Exeter, Lord Mildmay, Sir Godfrey Baring and Sir George Shee. Just below is a rare photograph of some of the staff that were working at Lupton House during the Prince's visit.

There is also a small, documented connection with World War II in regards to Lupton. In January 1944 a training programme for NEPTUNE included 'Exercise Duck' and was known as the exercise phase. Whilst troops selected for the invasion assult were training, both in their own areas and at the Assault Training Centre, a large number of exercises were held to give the units actual experience in the type of the work were to perform. Exercise Duck initiated almost continual exercises. Five camp areas were se aside for this exercise. Four of them (A, B, C and D) were located in the Falmouth - Heslton - Redruth - Lanviet - St. Austell - Truro area and the fifth, Camp Area E was located at 'Lupton House, East Dartmouth'. Each area contained 14 camps and parking space for 1,000 vehicles except for Camp E (Lupton House) which had four camps and parking space for 200 vehicles. Each of the camps had 39 pyramidal tents, a mess tent and a kitchen, and accommodated 200 task force troops and 30 SOS maintenance troops. During the nights of the 6th and 7th of February, orders for the exercise were published, and on the 7th February the movement tables were published. Movement of the task force personnel into the assembly area began on 9th February with the 1st Brigade personnel moving into Lupton House.

Since then Lupton House has been a hotel (although further details regarding this are still being researched) and recently was Gramercy Hall School, a small co-educational independant school which taught approximately 160 day and boarding pupils aged between 3 and 17. It was founded in 1990 but closed in 2004.

After that the house has stood empty.

In 2003 the Brixham Heritage Museum’s Field Research Team conducted an excavation of the grounds of Lupton House. A page outlining this, along with the backstory and resulting finds, can be seen at the following website.