25 Palace Avenue

PAIGNTON

SX8860 1947-1/5/68

PALACE AVENUE (North side) No.25

GV II

Post office, now in use as shops, offices and music school. 1888 by GS Bridgman, who designed Palace Avenue.

MATERIALS: Snecked local red breccia with some facing in Bathstone ashlar; red Devon sandstone, Ham Hill and grey polished granite dressings; hipped slate roof with crested ridge tiles; stacks with red brick shafts with bracketed cornices and shaped flue dividers.

PLAN: On a corner site between Palace Avenue and Coverdale Road with a rounded corner. Double-depth plan with former post office in a single-storey block at the front onto Palace Avenue and offices in a 3-storey block behind.

EXTERIOR: Free Baroque style. 3 storeys and single-storey. 2-bay front. The single-storey projection is divided into 4 bays by granite Corinthian pilsters supporting a dentil frieze below a cornice and balustraded parapet. Each bay has a round-headed pilastered window with a moulded arch, carved keyblock and recessed apron with carved roundel. Windows with high-transomed fixed glazing. Canted entrance bay to the right has corner pilasters and a pediment with a shield with mantling.

The 3-storey block behind has cream stone quoins and the 2nd floor is faced with cream stone ashlar with a foliated guilloche frieze below a dentil cornice. Moulded string at 2nd-floor sill level with a stone band below decorated with a Greek key frieze. 2 first-floor canted bay windows with shouldered stone architraves, a fine dentil frieze below the cornice and balustraded parpapets. Three 2nd-floor windows, glazed with 2-pane sashes. The 3-bay right return has one bay of the single-storey projection to match the others. Main block has rusticated pilasters to the ground floor and rusticated quoins to the first. Moulded cornices at first and second-floor level, the 2nd-floor cornice above a Greek key frieze. Ground floor has 2-pane sash to the left in a moulded frame flanked by pilasters with a cornice and sill blocks, pediment to window above first-floor cornice. 2-light casement alongside to right has a moulded stone architrave, sill blocks and cornice; right-hand tripartite window with a pilastered architrave. 2 first-floor 2-pane sashes with moulded architraves and segmental-headed pediments on consoles. The 2nd floor has 2-pane sashes alternating with fielded stone panels. The rear elevation is also richly-detailed. C20 rear right brick stair addition.

INTERIOR: Post office section preserves plaster cornices, although there has been some alteration by partitions. Other features of interest may survive elsewhere. A prominent and architecturally rich contribution to the Palace Avenue development.

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 1st April 2016.

Listing NGR: SX8865760715