The Distillery Public House, Former Coates Gin Distillery

The Distillery Public House, former Coates Gin Distillery

A large merchant's house built around 1500, later converted to a gin distillery and now in part use as a public house and restaurant. The building is located on Southside Street in Plymouth's Barbican.

The building has a complex history of reuse. It served as a gaol in 1605, functioned as a Congregational meeting house from 1689 to 1705, and was substantially remodelled and extended as a gin distillery from 1793 onwards. Local tradition claims it was once a friary, but there is no evidence to support this.

The street front is rendered rubble with some granite dressings. The left-hand return wall is rubble with many original granite features. The roofs are of dry slate with hipped ends meeting the street line.

The plan is large and complex. It comprises a deep original 1st-floor hall range on the left, with the left-hand wall of a further 16th-century range surviving at an angle beyond it. To the right lies a former open courtyard, roofed over in the 18th or 19th century. Further deep ranges extend to the right, with very thick walls of presumed original date but otherwise undated. The entire former garden area of the original medieval house is now covered over.

The exterior presents two storeys with an irregular street front. There are six 1st-floor openings, originally for windows and loading doorways. Three were loading doorways: at the far left and two central positions with segmental heads. Towards the left stands an 18th-century hornless eighteen-pane sash with thick glazing bars above an elliptical-arched carriage doorway with hoodmould, wrought-iron fanlight and 18th-century panelled doors. Left of this is a squat 16th-century moulded 4-centred arched granite doorway with carved spandrels and heavy studded door. At far left is a late 18th-century paired sash with thin glazing bars. Doorways sit beneath each central window; the one on the right has a segmental head. Right of this is a 20th-century tall 1st-floor sash with elliptical head, and at far right is a fixed light with elliptical head and inverted elliptical sill above a keyed elliptical-arched wide carriage doorway.

The left-hand return has many original or later 16th-century openings, now mostly blocked. There are four small round-arched openings on the right in staggered positions as if for staircase lighting. Left of these is a 4-light window with king mullion, approximately corresponding to a similar window in the opposite wall, and a 4-centred arched doorway which appears to face the arched doorway of the parallel wall. Left of this, the wall changes direction with further 16th-century openings including another 4-centred arched doorway.

The interior reveals the front wall of the original hall within the former courtyard on its left. This wall contains numerous original and possibly later 16th-century moulded granite features, many with later leaded glazing in pointed-arched wooden frames. An original 2-centred arched doorway with carved spandrels sits at the far right at low 1st-floor level. A small opening left of this, possibly cut much later, and a 2-centred opening above and to the left, possibly a former doorway, are puzzling features. A square-headed possible door opening with hoodmould at higher level than the right-hand doorway, perhaps formerly linked to a curtain wall or attached wing, exists. An original 4-light hall window with 2-centred arched lights and central king mullion survives, with two further windows higher up possibly fitted later. Low down right of the present undercroft doorway is a chamfered opening fitted with an 18th-century hatch, and another similar opening sits right of this behind the steps, visible only from inside. The two openings that are possible doorways present puzzles. The pointed-arched doorway appears to face a blocked 4-centred arched doorway in the back wall, possibly indicating a former gallery at this end of the hall with openings leading to attached buildings or features now removed. If designed as windows, they have no mullions or provision for them unless the present wooden windows represent a continuation of the original glazing method.

The rear of this range, forming the left-hand return from the street front, contains many blocked original and 17th-century features.

The 1st-floor hall contains what is probably the most important roof in Plymouth, carefully repaired following damage during the Blitz. The roof comprises eight bays with moulded arch-braced trusses and butt purlins; the four bays to the rear also have moulded purlins and wind braces. Visible high up in the room below is the relief shape of a blocked 4-centred arched fireplace. The other roofs inspected are 18th or early 19th century: the roof over the former courtyard has pegged tie-beam trusses, and the spaces at the rear of the courtyard have king-post trusses.

Many features of interest survive from the former distillery use, including a flagged floor of Plymouth limestone, part of which has a granite runnel.

Although some recording has been carried out by the Exeter Archaeological Unit, this building deserves more thorough recording combined with further documentary research to fully establish its importance both locally and nationally.