Imperial Hotel

BARNSTAPLE

SS5532 TAW VALE 684-1/4/229 (North East side) 31/12/73 Imperial Hotel (Formerly Listed as: TAW VALE PARADE Imperial Hotel)

GV II

Hotel. Largely 1902 (Pevsner), incorporating a c1800 house at the W end. Smooth plastered; natural slate roof with lead rolls; stacks with red brick shafts with corbelled cornices. c1800 house is symmetrical, 2 rooms wide. The hotel has been built around this and to the E with a large entrance/stair hall to E of the house. 3 storeys. Asymmetrical but regular 2:3:2:10-window range (2:3:2-window to the c1800 house). Deep eaves on moulded brackets; brick eaves course; moulded string at 2nd-floor cill level. Old house is symmetrical with Doric porch with moulded cornice with central roundel and 2-leaf small-pane glazed door. Ground-floor bay windows have rounded corners and are glazed with 4-pane horned sashes. The moulded string above was the cornice of the house before an extra storey was added with 3 similar sashes to the 2nd storey. The wing to the left has tall small-pane windows on the ground floor and 6 over one-pane sashes on the first floor and 4-pane sashes on the second floor. To right of the c1800 house a one-bay projection has a tall French roof with wrought-iron railings round the top. A 2-storey flat-roofed entrance block projects off this to the front with a 2-bay arcade on the ground floor and a third arch on the return with pilastered round-headed moulded arches with keyblocks. One opening is a door with plain fanlight, the other 2 are windows glazed with plate glass. The first floor of the entrance block is glazed with ribbon windows and crowned with decorative iron railings. The remainder of the hotel, 6 bays, has a canted corner and breaks forward to the right. Ground-floor windows are glazed with C20 timber 2-pane sashes, including 2 canted bays. First-floor balcony, probably 1902, on cast-iron brackets with frontal to match that on the entrance block. First-floor windows mostly French with high transoms, re-glazed with plastic windows, have cornices, some on consoles. Second-floor windows are 2 and 4-pane sashes. INTERIOR: large open-well timber stair to entrance hall with turned balusters. The c1800 house has been altered with ground-floor partition removed and 2 c1900 chimneypieces. HISTORICAL NOTE: a painting shows the c1800 house as 2-storey with projecting front wings. The building is an important feature of Taw Vale and the C19 riverside development close to the Long Bridge. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Cherry B: Devon: London: 1989-: 159).

Listing NGR: SS5597332884