Portland House

Portland House is an early 19th-century house and shop located on Bear Street, Barnstaple. The shop front was added in 1891. The building is constructed of rendered walls, likely brick except for the limestone ashlar shop front. The house has asbestos-slated roofs with red ridge tiles; the shop has a flat roof. It is one room wide and two rooms deep, with a gallery and a rear block.

The house has a two-storey front block with a garret, and a single-storey shop. The front block has a two-window range. A round-arched doorway, with a six-panelled door (the two lowest panels being flush), is located to the right of the ground storey. The windows are six-pane sashes. A gable wall facing Gaydon Street features two blind windows on each storey, and a six-pane sash window in the garret. To the right of the gable wall stands a tall, rendered courtyard wall that is ramped up at each end. A doorway with a pointed arch leads into the courtyard, with a door featuring six flush panels and a lion-head knocker. A ten-paned shop window is located at the right-hand end.

The rear wall of the front block has a round-arched stair window to the left, with six-pane sashes, radial glazing bars in the head of the upper sash. A second-storey window to the right also has six-pane sashes. The gallery has no windows in the upper storey. A side wall of the back block has a six-pane sash window to the left of the upper storey, and a narrow, small-paned window, likely lighting a staircase, in the centre, with a 20th-century wood casement window to the right.

The shop front has four tall windows with trefoil-headed tops, under canted hoodmoulds. Trefoil panels containing shields, with the date 1891 carved on the centre shield, are positioned between the window heads. The return front to Gaydon Street has a window with a pointed arch to the left and a round-arched doorway to the right, both with hoodmoulds; the doorway has double doors with a panel below and a glazed, trefoil-headed panel above. The corner is rounded, with a carved sunflower and inscribed scrolls. A crenellated parapet runs around both fronts, inscribed with "W YOUINGS AND SONS. MARBLE AND STONE MASONS,” with “EST. 1857” carved beneath the main range of windows.

The interior, partially inspected, includes an entrance passage with a moulded cornice and a panelled, round-headed archway leading to the stair compartment. The wooden open-well stair has a balustrade of thin, square-section balusters, voluted at the foot. The ground-floor front room has a white marble chimneypiece with incised decoration and the date 1886; it is reported that there are two similar chimneypieces in the house, all carved by Mr Youings.

Historical records indicate that the Youings family, who continue to run the firm, have been based on this site since the 1870s and their work encompasses both architectural and monumental masonry.