Museum Of North Devon Including Garden Railings Adjacent To River Front

BARNSTAPLE

SS5532 THE SQUARE 684-1/4/238 (South West side) 31/08/88 Museum of North Devon, including garden railings adjacent to river front (Formerly Listed as: THE SQUARE (West side) North Devon Athenaeum, inc garden railing adjoining the river front)

GV II

House, later library, now museum. 1872. Red brick with dressings of stone and terracotta. Hipped, slated roof, the flat centre guarded by ornamental iron railings. 5 red brick chimneys with moulded, bracketed stone caps. Plan: square, built round an internal courtyard. To right (on N side) a small service wing (probably a coach-house) with walled courtyard behind. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, the main house with garret. Front to square is 7-window range. Ground storey has centre doorway with pilasters having foliated stone capitals; above is a stone hood on large carved brackets. 6-panelled door. At either side a recessed sash window having in front of it a stone column supporting 2 round-arched transom-lights under a single round arch. Canted bay window at either end. Upper storey has sash windows with moulded stone lintels, rounded at the corners. Stone balcony with open tracery in front of middle window. Ground storey has 3 horizontal stone bands. Continued moulded cills in 2nd storey. Inset stone shaft with foliated capital at each corner. Bracketed eaves cornice with terracotta panels between the brackets. The other 3 fronts are similar in character, the best being to the left (facing S) and at the rear (facing the river). The latter front has terracotta panels and, at the right-hand end, a bow window having a string course carved with heads and heraldic shields. INTERIOR has several rooms and lobbies with enriched cornices and chandelier bosses. Open-well, wooden staircase in Jacobean manner with twisted balusters and large carved newels. Glazed inner doorway and screen with decorative woodwork, probably of the 1880s. Gothic stone chimneypiece in entrance hall. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: at the rear, facing the river, is a small garden enclosed by iron railings having spearhead uprights and standards. The gate piers, with the bases of Dolphin lamp posts, are separately listed (qv). HISTORICAL NOTE: built for William Thorne, but sold to the Barnstaple Bridge Trust in 1876. They in turn sold it to Mr WF Rock, who founded the North Devon Athenaeum and Free Library here in 1888. (White W: Directory of Devonshire: 1890-: 133; Cruse JB: The Long Bridge of Barnstaple: 1982-: 16).

Listing NGR: SS5586432968