The Pack Of Cards Including Courtyard Walls Incorporating Bee Boles On North-West Side

The Pack of Cards is an early 18th-century public house, located on Combe Martin High Street. It is a building of group value, recognized for its exceptional architectural and historical significance. The building is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob, with slate roofs. It features tall rendered stacks with drips to each of the four corners of the third and fourth stages of the central block, and a wrought iron balustrade to the top stages.

The architectural design is elaborate and symmetrical, composed of a tall rectangular central block that narrows to a square across five storeys. This central block is flanked by three-storey aisled wings with gabled ends projecting to each side. The first three stages of the building contain principal rooms in the wings that lead off corridors running through the central block. A two-storey, virtually free-standing porch is situated at the front (south-east), with a central Venetian window to the upper storey. A first-floor access is provided to the north-east entrance, facing the road.

The south-east front showcases the aforementioned porch, supported by eight Tuscan columns, incorporating a central Venetian window with Y glazing bars to the upper storey. Casement windows are present on each stage of the central block above the porch, except for the top stage. A slate sundial is positioned to the left of the middle three-light window. The window openings to each side of the central block have mostly been infilled, except for those on the top stage. One gable end of a projecting wing displays a symmetrical disposition of 12-paned sashes to the first two storeys and a single sash to the third storey central gable, above which is a polygonal sundial. The other wing is identical, except that ground floor outer sashes are missing. The north-east side, facing the road, features a Venetian-style window above the first floor entrance to the central block, which is sheltered by a bracketted pedimented canopy with engaged pilasters and a six-panelled door.

A courtyard wall on the north-west side incorporates two tiers of six straight-headed bee-boles with slightly rounded pilastered niches.

The interior retains much of the original joinery and moulded cornices, despite 20th-century alterations to the ground floor. The first and second floors are largely unaltered, featuring decorative plaster ceilings in the principal first floor room of the left-hand wing and in the through-corridor. Both corridors are panelled as is the central room on the third floor, where Marie Corelli reputedly wrote “The Mighty Atom”. Moulded plaster cornices and raised and fielded panelling are present throughout the principal rooms.

Local tradition suggests the inn was originally built as a private house by George Ley, following a substantial gambling victory; the original number of windows, doorways, and chimneys are said to represent the elements of a pack of cards.