The Ship Hotel

The Ship Hotel occupies a prominent corner position on the High Street in Crediton, dating to approximately the late 1830s. The building was constructed as part of a wider town improvement scheme initiated in 1836, which relocated the market and altered the town's road layout. It is built of painted Flemish bond brick, with a slate roof and brick chimney shafts. The architectural style is Italianate.

The building consists of a large, double-depth block with entrances on both the High Street and Market Street. A direct entrance on the corner leads into the main public room, while a grander entrance on Market Street opens into a passage. A carriage entrance is located on the left side of the High Street elevation.

The High Street elevation is three storeys high, with three bays and a deep moulded cornice below a low parapet. The first floor, known as the "piano nobile", has a moulded platband at sill level, with a plain platband to the second floor. The left bay is slightly set back, featuring moulded brackets below the cornice. The ground floor carriage entrance has a segmental arch on granite jambs with chamfered bases and moulded capitals. Fine, paired six-panel doors, ramped upwards to the centre and capped with iron spikes, serve the carriagway. To the right of the carriage entrance are two segmental-headed recesses containing sash windows with moulded architraves and sills, and apron panels below. The left window has been reglazed with four panes, while the original had twelve. The first-floor windows are tall 9/6-pane sashes with moulded architraves and cornices supported by consoles with triangular pediments above. Round-headed first-floor windows with moulded architraves are filled with small-pane sashes and spoke glazing bars. The corner bay is recessed with brackets. The ground floor doorway has a moulded architrave and an original two-leaf panelled door with a two-pane overlight.

The symmetrical three-bay Market Street elevation mirrors the High Street elevation, but the first-floor windows lack cornices or pediments. A central doorway is framed by a smart Ionic porch with stone columns and entablature. Steps lead to a round-headed doorway with panelled reveals and a decorative fanlight with central roundel and teardrop glazing, though the front door itself is a 20th-century replacement.

Limited inspection of the interior reveals that the main bar has been modernized, though potentially interesting features may survive on the first and second floors. The Ship Hotel is considered the most impressive surviving building from the 1836 Market Street development, a scheme which, supported by Buller of Downes, demonstrated a sophisticated architectural approach for a small provincial town.