62, Boutport Street

This is a house, later used as a hotel and now serving as building society offices, dating from 1620, with a substantial refronting in the early 19th century. The building is L-shaped, consisting of two rooms at the front and a rear wing to the right. It has a hipped, slated roof and a red-brick chimney on the right-hand side wall. The building is four storeys high and has a three-window front. The outer windows are large, three-light arrangements set in shallow bows. The ground floor is divided into three bays, with a narrow central entrance bay flanked by unfluted Doric columns and matching pilasters, which support an entablature extending around the bow windows and entrance. Raised bands run above each upper storey, and a moulded eaves cornice finishes the front. The windows, including those on the ground floor, are now C20 replacements with barred sashes.

The interior has been altered, but still retains three fine original ceilings. One, located originally in a first-floor room before the floors were removed when the building was converted into a bank in the 1930s, is considered to be particularly significant as the finest example of urban plasterwork in Devon, with few rivals even in grand country houses. This front ceiling is barrel-vaulted with broad enriched ribs; the panels depict birds, animals, and biblical scenes, and include open-work pendants with human figures, one inscribed "July 9th" and the other "1620". A coat of arms on the end wall belongs to the Company of Merchants trading with Spain, indicating that a merchant likely resided in the building. The original timber frame supporting this ceiling remains in place.

A rear room in the wing features another broad rib ceiling, this time with more traditional panel detail, constructed under the roof trusses with the principal rafters exposed. The principals are decorated with large human figures standing on brackets resembling hammer beams. A remaining original stone fireplace with a rectangular moulded surround is located in the front wall of this room at ground-floor level. The right-hand front room, now the office foyer, features a single rib ceiling decorated with winged horses; this ceiling was valued in 1917, though it may include later work by G.P. Bankart.

Historically, the building operated as the Golden Lion Hotel. Bruce Oliver, who oversaw the 1930s bank conversion, noted a lack of original colour on the ceilings, except for red detailing on the lions’ tongues. A fireplace was removed to Fardell Manor, Cornwood.