Ebberly Lawn (Terrace)

Ebberly Lawn is a terrace of 10 houses on the south side of Bear Street, Barnstaple, built in 1868 and designed by RD Gould. It represents a significant example of mid-19th-century residential architecture in the town.

The terrace is constructed in pale yellow brick with limestone and patterned tile dressings. The semi-basements are of squared granite rubble. Numbers 9 and 18 have added rendering, probably dating from the 20th century. The roofs are slated with hip ends at each extremity of the terrace and feature crested red ridge-tiles. Large brick chimneys stand on the ridge between each pair of houses; some retain good decorated pots, though most appear to have been rebuilt with the exception possibly of the chimney between numbers 15 and 16, which is rendered with a moulded cap.

The plan is uniform: each house is one room wide and two rooms deep on the ground floor, with an entrance passage leading to a rear staircase along one side. Two rooms occupy the front of the upper floors. Most houses have a small rear wing, though the irregularity of their design suggests these may be slightly later additions. Number 18 differs in having its entrance from the side in Bear Street, with a passage between front and back rooms.

The buildings are of two storeys with semi-basement and garret. Numbers 10-17 are designed in pairs, each presenting a two-window range. Adjacent doorways in the centre of each pair are round-arched and flanked by inset square columns with carved stone capitals. Moulded imposts support a hoodmould with a decorated keystone. At ground storey level, canted bay windows on either side have bracketed stone cornices and a frieze of patterned polychrome tiles, topped with low wrought-iron railings. Upper-storey windows have shouldered stone heads projecting slightly on corbels; those above the canted bays are of two lights with a chamfered central mullion. A bracketed eaves cornice runs across each house. Each has a large hipped dormer with two sash windows—each sash having one upright glazing bar—and a modillioned cornice.

Numbers 9 and 18 differ in having a three-light mullioned window replacing the bay at ground storey, the lights round-arched with moulded decoration in their heads. Number 9 has a plain doorway with slightly recessed surround and plain keystone. Except in the dormers, all houses have plain sashes without glazing bars. The side wall of number 18 has a doorway similar to those of the other houses, with flanking ground-storey windows and a middle upper-storey window having shouldered arches; the outer upper-storey windows are canted bays.

The rear walls, visible from Alexander Road, have been altered in some cases, but much original work remains. Numbers 9-13, 16 and 17 retain barred sashes, usually of six panes per sash, although numbers 9-12 have triple-sashes with four panes per sash in the centre and two panes in the outer lights. Numbers 10-13 and 17 have original hipped dormers with two-pane sashes. Number 9 has a gabled projection with half its sashes intact.

The interiors were not inspected except for number 17 and part of number 18. Number 17 has moulded cornices in most rooms, including the entrance passage and stair compartment. The ground-floor front room features an ornate chandelier boss and an original chimneypiece with scroll-brackets supporting the mantelshelf. A round-headed wooden archway in the entrance passage is incised with Grecian ornament. The wooden open-well stair has thin square-section balusters, voluted at the foot.

Ebberly Lawn is an attractive Barnstaple terrace by Gould displaying more architectural detail than might be expected on houses of this size and sympathetically designed to respond to the late 18th-century terrace opposite.