Pannier Market

A market building constructed in 1855 by R D Gould of Barnstaple, located on Butchers' Row in the town centre. The building stands on the site of an earlier Butchers' Market erected in 1812.

The market is built of red brick with dressings of yellow and blue brick and Bath stone. It has a slated roof with a full-length, partly glazed lantern running down the centre. The structure comprises a single long room extending almost the full length of Butchers' Row, from the Guildhall on the west to Queen's Hall on the east, with a former corn market adjoining at the right-hand end.

The front elevation to Butchers' Row is arcaded from end to end with 20 round-arched doorways. The 12th doorway from the left is slightly wider and set in a slight projection. The doorways have Bath stone keystones and continued imposts; all except the wider doorway feature recessed inner surrounds of yellow brick with 5-paned fanlights. A raised Bath stone band surmounts the arches, topped by a brick parapet with stone coping. Between the arches are rainwater pipes bearing town arms and the date 1855. An enriched iron bracket lamp is attached to the keystone of the wider doorway. At the rear, opening into Market Street, is a wide doorway matching the front entrance.

The interior is arranged as a nave with aisles, supported by 19 pairs of chamfered wooden posts carrying the roof trusses. The posts have moulded capitals from which spring arch-braces supporting two tiers of principal rafters. These rafters are linked by diagonally-braced panels in the form of St Andrew's crosses, with iron scrollwork in the arch spandrels. Between the posts on each side are similarly-braced panels with small moulded pendants on the uprights; arch-braces with scrollwork again support them, above which runs a clerestory. The aisles have lean-to roofs with complex chamfered bracing and diagonally-set boarding behind the purlins.

At the west end, a wide entrance into the Guildhall features a doorway designed like a Venetian window with two chamfered posts supporting a segmental-headed centre opening; a massive patterned fanlight spans all three openings. Flanking this are two pairs of round-arched windows with continued brick imposts; the left-hand south window, slightly taller than the others, is blocked.

At the east end are a series of similar arches, now blocked, which formerly opened into the corn market prior to the building of Queen's Hall. In the rear north wall, east of the Market Street exit, is a row of five round-arched doorways leading into the later corn market. This adjoining space retains its original roof with chamfered trusses supported by an elaborate system of iron braces. In the west wall of the corn market is a giant Venetian window with moulded cornices and archivolt to the lights; the centre and left-hand lights retain barred sashes, with the centre light's head taking the form of a radial-barred fanlight.

Historically, the original 1812 Butchers' Market with Corn Exchange above extended only as far as Anchor Lane (now Market Street). The new Pannier Market of 1855 was carried through to Boutport Street, with the rear section (now Queen's Hall) forming the corn market and music hall above. A new street, Butchers' Row, was cut through on the building's south side with butchers' shops opposite. In 1864, the Pannier Market was extended into the corn market space, with the corn market itself relocated to its present site to the north.