Frenchman'S Creek

SX 15 SW FOWEY TOWN QUAY, Fowey

868-0/2/162 Food for Thought (Formerly Listed as: FOWEY TOWN QUAY 11/03/74 Frenchman's Creek)

GV II*

Merchants' hall. C15 and early C16. MATERIALS: render on rubble; asbestos slate hipped roof with hipped returns to rear wings; 2 central gabled dormer windows with 4-pane horned sashes, the right-hand window lower and breaking the eaves; rendered lateral stack rear of front range. PLAN: original single-depth range, originally open to the roof but floored in the C17, plus 21ater parallel wings at right angles to rear and adjoining The Waterfront Restaurant (qv). EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; blind except for dormers to 1st floor. Ground floor has central doorway under left-hand dormer, a window to left and pair of windows slightly right of doorway, all C20 transomed windows with glazing bars. Right-hand return is a 3-window range with 3:1:2 lights, all C20 8-pane horned sashes. Ground floor has C20 window at far left, a wide doorway left of centre and a serving hatch in former window opening on the right. INTERIOR: chamfered cross beams of 2 dates and on 2 levels to ground floor. Two late medieval oak roofs of considerable importance and interest: the roof on the right is a C15 arch-braced and crown-post roof, with wind braces, of 2 bays, plus a truncated bay on the right; the other 4:2-bay roof of early C16 date with arch-braced trusses and square-set purlins at collar level, otherwise threaded purlins to both roofs and reduced principals above the collars. The roof on the left has 2 trusses on the right of slightly different design, probably slightly later; the truss 2nd from left is moulded probably denoting a higher status for this end of the building, and there is a screen truss in between the main roof and the crown-post roof which carries the square-set purlins from the left and the angled purlins from the right. It is at this truss particularly that it is clear that at some time, probably in the C17, that the eaves were heightened. A more detailed description of the building, plus floor and roof plans and sections has been done by the RCHME (Mercer). Graded as a rare surviving example of a late medieval town house in Cornwall, which contains (most unusually for the county) a considerable amount of original fabric. The crown post roof is the only example of its type in Cornwall, the only other known roof truss being at Rectory Farm in Morwenstow parish which appears to have been part of an aisled structure. (Mercer E: English Vernacular Houses: London: 1975-: 143-4).

Listing NGR: SX1262251661