18, 20 AND 22, ST PETER STREET

Three houses, now subdivided, built in the early 18th century and remodelled externally and to some extent internally in the early 19th century, located on the west side of St Peter Street, Tiverton.

The building is constructed with rendered walls, mostly solid, though the front and back walls of the third storey of the front range are timber framed. The rear wall of the rear range, which overlooks the river, is slate hung. Painted brick fronts face the internal courtyard. The roofs are slated, with the front range hipped. Red brick chimneys, three on the rear wall of the front range and several more on the rear ranges, form an important visual element in views up-river from Exe Bridge.

The plan is built around four sides of a courtyard. The front range (No. 22) is one room deep and two rooms wide, with an entrance hall and staircase compartment in the centre. The right-hand rooms have an angle fireplace in the rear left-hand corner. The date of the rear ranges is uncertain, though they must be at least early 19th century; however, the rear range of No. 18 has a steeply pitched roof suggesting it could be contemporary with the front range. The two side ranges (No. 20) are linked by a lean-to behind the front range.

The front range rises three storeys, with the top storey originally a garret, boxed out in the 19th century. The side and rear ranges are two storeys with a garret in the rear range. Basement spaces lie beneath the front and rear ranges.

The symmetrical front elevation is three windows wide with a doorway replacing the middle ground-storey window. The door has two tall flush panels, flush-panelled reveals, and a two-paned fanlight with margin panes, supported by panelled flanking pilasters carrying an entablature. A round-headed iron shoe-scrapper is set into the wall on the right-hand side. The windows have moulded architraves and flush-framed barred sashes. Ground- and second-storey windows have 12-paned sashes, except the outer windows, which have three lights with 3-paned sashes; the third storey has 6-paned sashes. A boxed wooden eaves cornice completes the front.

The left side walls of all three parts, visible from St Peter Street, have barred sashes of 6 or 8 panes. The returns of No. 22 feature 3-paned French windows in the ground storey, with both this and the three-light window above having two-paned side sashes. No. 18 has a doorway with a wooden trellised porch and swept pentroof, with barred sashes also in the rear wall, those in the ground storey slightly bowed.

The interior contains a wooden staircase rising from the rear of the entrance hall. This is an early 19th-century open-well staircase with cut strings, thin square balusters and a continuous handrail (altered at the foot) extending to the first-floor landing. The original dog-leg rises above, with lighter timbers than many period examples, moulded closed strings, square newels with flat moulded caps and small turned pendants, and a flat handrail with boarded-in balusters. A box cornice sits on the first-floor landing.

The right-hand ground storey room retains an original moulded ceiling with two oval panels bearing high-relief foliated bosses in the centre, with a coved cornice running round the ceiling perimeter and along the sides of the centre beam. The left-hand room has raised and fielded, ovolo-moulded panelled shutters at the front and early 19th-century panelled shutters to the French windows at the side.

The second-storey right-hand room contains an early 19th-century reeded stone chimneypiece (now painted) and a two-panelled, ovolo-moulded cupboard door. The left-hand room has an early 20th-century wood chimneypiece decorated with swags and garlands, with an oval mirror in the centre of the overmantel.

The third storey retains original roof trusses, one featuring housings for a former notched lap-jointed collar, and a door with two raised and fielded ovolo-moulded panels.

As the end block of the continuous built-up frontage between here and St Peter's churchyard, these houses occupy a key position in the street.