36, Pilton Street

BARNSTAPLE

SS5534 PILTON STREET, Pilton 684-1/2/357 (West side) 19/01/51 No.36

GV II*

House, early C17 with early C18 refurbishment. Formerly a single dwelling with No.37 (qv) adjoining to the N, but the 2 buildings are said to have been rented and treated separately until 1711 (Reed, p.149). Owned by the Pilton United Charities. Mass wall construction, front elevation roughcast, rear elevation partly slate-hung; left end and rear stack with brick shafts; cast-iron rainwater goods. L-plan. Front block 2 rooms wide with a cross passage: principal heated room to left of passage. 2 unheated service rooms to right, one behind the other, framed stair to rear of service rooms. Rear left wing gives another large heated room, presumably the kitchen. 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3-window range with moulded eaves brackets. Fine C17 ovolo-moulded, stopped door frame to right of centre: front door with 6 fielded panels. 3 ground-floor C18 or C19 16-pane sash windows, 3 first-floor 12-pane sash windows. Rear wing has one ground- and one first-floor 5-light C17 casement, the mullions chamfered on the inside and ovolo-moulded on the exterior. C17 door frame to rear of passage with C17 door with cover strips. INTERIOR: remarkably complete with a wealth of historic features. Passage flanked by (painted) oak plank-and-muntin screens with scroll stops; C17 doorways into all ground-floor rooms. Ground floor front right has complete single rib ceiling, enriched with sprays, original stair has turned balusters and newel posts. First floor has set of C17 ovolo-moulded door-frames into upper rooms. First-floor right-hand room has a C17 decorated plaster frieze, left-hand room has an early C18 eared chimneypiece with a triglyph frieze. HISTORICAL NOTE: the earliest documentation for the house, mentioned by Reed (p70), is in a Trust Deed of 1577 in which several Pilton charities were merged. It was rented to a succession of wealthy clothiers. From 1711 to 1845 it was rented out as one dwelling with No.37 (qv). (Reed MA: Pilton, its Past and Present: Barnstaple: 1985-: 149).

Listing NGR: SS5567334060