Post Office And Adjoining House

The Post Office and adjoining house in Otterton is a building that dates back to the 17th century, with refurbishments and rearrangements made in the late 19th century. The Post Office section was added in the mid-20th century. The house features plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble and brick stacks topped by late 19th-century brick chimney shafts, and has a thatched roof. The Post Office is constructed from plastered brick and has a slate roof.

The house faces southeast, with its left end adjacent to Fore Street. It has a double-depth plan, with two main rooms at the front; the left room has an end stack, while the right room has a slightly projecting front lateral stack. There is an entrance hall and staircase at the right end, with service rooms at the rear, including a right-side room with a lateral stack. The Post Office shop projects at a right angle from the rear of the left end, facing the street, and is single storey, while the house is two storeys tall.

The front of the house features a regular but not symmetrical arrangement of three windows, which are 19th-century casements with glazing bars. At the right end, there is a late 19th-century part-glazed four-panel door topped with a 20th-century gabled hood. The left-side stack has slate weathered offsets. The roof is gable-ended to the right and hipped to the left. The left end of the house includes two ground floor and one first floor casement windows with glazing bars. The shop has a central doorway flanked by plate glass windows.

Inside, the only visible feature from the 17th century is the central roof truss, which is plastered over but indicates jointed cruck construction. Other 17th-century features may be hidden beneath plaster, and only 19th-century joinery details are visible. The Post Office house is part of a group of attractive listed buildings along Otterton Fore Street.