99, High Street

This is a house, likely dating from the early 18th century, that has been remodelled and with a shop front added in the mid-19th century. It is situated in Barnstaple High Street. The front is rendered, likely over a brick or timber-framed structure, with a substantial stone rear wall to the front block. The roof is slate, hipped to the street, and features a late-19th century red brick chimney on the left side wall.

The front range is one room wide and two rooms deep, with the rear room subdivided. The third storey incorporates a newel stair to the roof space in the left-hand section, which may be the original location of the staircase. A short rear wing extends to the left, built in two phases. The front section features an early to mid-19th century staircase to the right. The rear section extends across the full plot width, creating a small courtyard or light well behind the front block.

The building is three storeys high, with a two-window front. The ground floor boasts a well-preserved mid-19th century shop front, considered to be one of the best surviving examples of its date in Barnstaple. It comprises a pair of canted display windows with a recessed doorway between them, and a house door to the right. The shop front is flanked by panelled pilasters supporting ornate bracket blocks decorated with lion heads, and topped by an entablature. The display windows have horizontal glazing bars, with curved corners and sunk spandrels in the heads of the lights. The three-quarter-glazed shop doors have solid moulded panels at the bottom. Upper-storey windows have moulded architraves with decorated corners and plain sashes. Raised quoins flank the front. A dentilled top cornice and parapet run along the top, interrupted by a triangular projecting clock with two faces, each featuring a triangular pediment with Gothic panelling and a crenellated base.

The ground-floor rooms have been extensively altered, although the entrance passage remains on the right. A wooden staircase with a narrow open well rises from the second to the third storey, featuring thin square balusters and column newels with small turned pendants. The front room on the second storey retains an early to mid-19th century painted wood chimneypiece with a moulded surround. A moulded cornice, potentially dating from the early 18th century, is present in a front wing room.

The rear wing includes a roughly-chamfered ceiling beam and an eight-paned sash window overlooking the light well. The third-storey front room has an early to mid-19th century chimneypiece with a painted wood surround and an enriched iron basket grate. A staircase to the roof space has an octagonal wood newel. An adjoining room contains an early 18th century two-panelled door with raised-and-fielded panels and a one-fillet ovolo-moulding. The front block’s roof features heavy principal rafters, through-purlins and a ridge, with straight windbraces added later. The front has been hipped back, with rough straight windbraces added.