Island House

Island House is a merchant's house in the Barbican, Plymouth, dating to the late 16th century or possibly 1640. A painted date and initials 'I G' appear on a roof truss, though these may be later than the original build date. The house was extended slightly later in the 17th century.

The building is constructed of rendered rubble on the right-hand side of the front, with unrendered rubble to the left-hand return and rear walls. The original gable end front on the left and a later gable end front to the right are of timber frame with plaster infill, jettied to the first and second floors. The roofs are steep, with dry slate laid to diminishing courses and swept valleys; the gables have moulded barge boards. Large rubble chimney stacks are positioned as two lateral stacks on the left (the rear one with a projecting corbelled breast) and another to the rear towards the right.

The original plan is two rooms deep on the left, with a semicircular-on-plan former stair turret towards the rear within the wall thickness. Later in the 17th century, the original rubble wall on the right was replaced with a timber frame partition, creating a one-room-plan extension. In the 18th century, the original staircase was floored in and replaced with a dog-leg staircase to the rear centre.

The exterior presents four storeys with the upper floor partly in roof space. The original front gable end has a central 16-pane fixed light, over paired 20th-century copy sashes with glazing bars to the first and second floors. The ground floor features a slate-roofed canted bay shop window on the left with similar sashes, and a doorway with slate hood and moulded cornice with a six-panel door on the right. The side wall of the wing has paired sashes with glazing bars to the first and second floors and a bowed shop window with moulded hood to the ground floor. The front gable end of the later wing displays early 19th-century canted bay windows with sashes with glazing bars to the upper floors, except the top floor which has a later horned sash within a moulded architrave. The ground floor has an early 19th-century shopfront with glazing bars and wide incised pilasters. The left-hand return to the upper floor retains a 17th-century oak ovolo-moulded mullioned window lighting the former stair recess, with the roof sprocketed above. The rear left has a similar three-light window also to the upper floor; other rear windows have 18th-century moulded sills and 12-pane sashes with glazing bars, those to the central stair position retaining 18th-century sashes with thick glazing bars (except for one later replacement), and sashes to the right being early 19th-century with thin glazing bars.

The interior retains many original features. The oak roof structures include lap-dovetail-jointed cranked collars and threaded purlins to the original section; the later roof has two tiers of collars. The chamfered oak floor beams and joists show some alterations resulting from changes to stair position and the resiting of the partition in the original house. The partition between the two phases dates to the addition of the wing. Two 17th-century doors with fluted mouldings survive (one was unhung during repairs to the property at the time of survey). The fireplace structures are presumed to be original, though with some alteration to the ground-floor left, and a doorway has been cut through the ground-floor fireplace at the rear. Other fireplaces are fitted with good 18th-century iron grates or are blocked, with an 18th-century chimneypiece to one of the blocked fireplaces. The 18th-century dog-leg staircase has a closed string, ramped handrail, and turned balusters.

Tradition holds that the Pilgrim Fathers slept at this house before sailing to America. Island House is a fine example of a jettied merchant's house.