39, High Street

Shop with rooms above at Barnstaple. The building dates from the 14th or early 15th century, with the front range rebuilt in the early 18th century and the rear wing extended in the 19th century.

The front range is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, painted at the front and rendered at the back. The rear wing is wholly rendered. The rear gable-wall of the older part, and possibly also the side walls, are of stone rubble. The roofs are slated with red ridge-tiles; the rear wing is tarred. There is no evidence of chimneys, unless an old red-brick stack on the right side wall of the wing belongs to this building rather than to No.38A.

The building has an L-shaped plan with a narrow courtyard on the left side of the rear wing. The rear wing may originally have been a medieval open hall. The front range is one room deep with a cross-passage at the left-hand end of the ground storey and a staircase in the left-hand rear corner. The building is 3 storeys at the front and 2 storeys in the rear wing.

The front to High Street is a 3-window range. The ground storey has a late 20th-century shop front. The upper-storey windows have segmental arches with keyblocks; those in the 3rd storey are fluted. All windows now contain fixed 12-pane late 20th-century sashes, though those in the 3rd storey formerly had flush-framed 6-pane sashes.

The rear wall of the front range has a late 16th to mid-17th-century wooden ovolo-moulded mullioned window of 2 lights, probably re-set. The right-hand (south) light is blocked, but the left-hand (north) light contains an early or mid-19th-century wooden casement of 15 panes, two of them with old greenish glass.

The interiors of the front range contain little of interest except for first-floor window seats with ovolo-moulded panelled fronts and a similar 2-panelled door. The staircase is entirely plain, cut through 2 apertures in the rear wall. The roof space is not accessible. The rear wing is similarly featureless, though under the plaster the walls may contain blocked windows, doorways and fireplaces of early date.

The roof structure is of major importance, dating probably from the 14th or early 15th century. It comprises 2 trusses with cranked collars, 2 tiers of through purlins and a square-set ridge-piece. Nearly all the common rafters are old and possibly original. The front truss has a small rectangular projection below the centre of the collar. The ridge is clasped between the tops of the principal rafters and supported by a triangular strengthening piece. The rear truss differs in having a saddle to support the ridge. Both trusses have scratched carpenter's marks, though not obviously in numbered sequence.

There is some evidence of smoke-blackening from a former open hearth, especially at the front end, though it is not heavy compared with many rural medieval roofs in Devon. The different character of the rear truss and the reduced blackening at that end may suggest that the wing was extended during the Middle Ages. The boxed feet of the trusses are visible on the first floor; the curve on the left side end may indicate crucks or jointed crucks. Two chimney-breasts are visible in the roof space: one of brick at the front and one of stone with occasional bricks at the rear.

Medieval roof-trusses of this early type are rare in Devon towns. If, as seems likely, the rear wing was an open hall, this represents a medieval urban house type not known elsewhere in the county.