Warehouse Adjoining To Rear Of No 153

The following buildings shall be added:

FORE STREET SX 9192 SE (west side) 871/5/10003 Warehouse adjoining to rear of No 153 GV II

Warehouse. Mid-late C17 with various C19 alterations. Mostly brick, some on stone rubble footings; some timber framing (either brick nogged or weatherboarded). Slate roof. Exterior: The original front (the long south-west side) now lies behind a C20 shed. The ground floor level is probably C19, it is brick with some stone rubble in the left bay. This masonry butt joins the original brick of the left gable end wall. The first floor level is a C19 timber frame of slender scantling, some of it brick nogged and the right end is weatherboarded. The other two remaining outer walls are of original C17 brick up to eaves level, the left end wall on stone rubble footings. The brick is not laid to a regular bond. There is a discontinuous platband above first floor level. The left end wall has a central window on each floor, the lower C19 window is shuttered, the upper one a pivoting casement with glazing bars. The gable is C19; a brick-nogged timber frame. The back wall has an inserted doorway on the ground floor and a loading hatch door on the first floor. Interior: The basic original carpentry is well-preserved. The first floor is three bays carried on roughly chamfered crossbeams. Most of the plain joists are original except for the bay adjoining the back block. The red brick floor is C19. The roof is 3½ bays (originally 4) and is carried on side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with dovetail- shaped lap-jointed collars fixed by oak pegs augmented by (possible secondary) iron spikes. The purlins and boarded roof are C19 and follow a slightly lower pitch than the original. This warehouse is an important survival from the height of Exeter's mercantile wealth. It may always have been a warehouse but its putative open front suggest it had some specific industrial purpose. If it were open originally, it would have looked much like a linhay. The chief industry of seventeenth-century Exeter was the wool trade and the building may have been associated with the storage of wool or cloth.

Listing NGR: SX9175492434