26, High Street

This is a shop, dating to 1890. It is situated on the north side of High Street in Ilfracombe. The building's external appearance is a mix of painted surfaces, possibly over stone, and exposed red brick. The second storey is constructed from wood and cast iron. A visible right-side wall is of red brick, while the roof is not visible from street level. The building features a red brick chimney on the right-side wall and a multi-flued chimney on the left.

The exterior boasts a striking, vertically-articulated facade, likely based on an iron frame, and is characteristic of advanced commercial architecture from the period. The building rises four storeys and features a five-window front. The ground floor has a late 20th-century shopfront. The second storey has plain display windows with transom lights, slightly set back behind a continuous iron arcade of round arches springing from columns with enriched capitals. The spandrels between the arches are filled with open tracery. Wooden pilasters flank the facade, terminating in corbelled blocks, with a blindcase centrally placed. An ornate iron bracket sits on the blindcase, originally intended to carry a sign. The third and fourth storeys have close-set windows, flanked and separated by red brick pilasters topped with corbelled, panelled blocks, which support ball finials or low curved pediments. A moulded top cornice and parapet run above, the parapet pierced by a series of round-headed panels. The third-storey windows are plain but have transom lights of coloured leaded glass. The fourth-storey windows have 12-paned upper sashes. A large triangular pediment, supported by brackets, spans the brick piers of the middle window on the third storey; it displays the date 1890.

The ground-floor interior has been extensively altered.

Historical records, including advertisements from the Ilfracombe Observer and North Devon Review in 1891 and 1891, indicate that the building was originally occupied by J Pugsley & Sons, drapers, milliners, dressmakers, tailors, hatters, hosiers, and house furnishers. An engraving of the original front with a two-storey display window is also documented.

The building contributes favourably to the group value when viewed alongside numbers 27-32 High Street, which adjoin it to the west and share a similar late 19th-century architectural character.