Masonic Temple Including Front Area Railings

SS5147 853-1/6/106 16/07/87

ILFRACOMBE NORTHFIELD ROAD (East side) Masonic Temple including front area railings

GV II

Masonic Temple. Dated 1899, by HM Gardner of Ilfracombe. MATERIALS: bath stone ashlar front; side walls rendered. Asbestos-slated roof with red ridge-tiles. PLAN: narrow-fronted oblong plan. EXTERIOR: front designed after the style of a classical temple, using columns with capitals of 4 different orders. One storey. 3 round-arched openings with moulded archivolts springing from plain-shafted columns. Central entrance with 6-panelled door and patterned fanlight flanked by paired columns; Composite to left and Corinthian to right. Either side, a round-arched window with small panes of frosted glass and a margins of narrow red panes; transom at the springing level. A single Ionic column to right and left. The whole front flanked by full-height, paired Tuscan columns, broken forward and supporting an entablature and triangular pediment. In the centre of the entablature, a plaque inscribed MASONIC TEMPLE in raised letters; in the tympanum, also in relief, the Masonic emblem and date A.D. 1899. Because of the fall in the ground, the left-hand pair of columns has a high pedestal inset into which is a white marble slab carved with the masonic emblem and carrying the inscription in lead: LODGE CONCORD NO.1135. THIS STONE WAS LAID BY THE WORSHIPFUL BRO. C.C.DAVIE P.M. 251 P.A.G.D. OF CERS.ENG. D.P.G.M. FOR DEVONSHIRE MAY 10 1899. WOR BRO. A.H.FISHER W.M. It is signed Huxtable Sculptor (JP Huxtable of Ilfracombe). There is only one opening in the side-walls, a doorway with 6-panelled door on the right-hand side. The front area railing has spear-head uprights and standards, these alternating with pairs of uprights sharing a looped top. INTERIOR not inspected. The Masonic Temple forms a group with Northfield House and No.3 Northfield Road (qv). (Ilfracombe Chronicle: Hussey AT: 13.8.1937: 8).

Listing NGR: SS5159947635