Riverside

Riverside is a house, likely dating from around 1839, and now used as a health authority day centre. It is situated on Litchdon Street in Barnstaple, and is part of a group of three similar houses. The building is constructed of rendered, probably stone, solid walls with a hipped, slated roof and two small rendered chimneys on the left side. The design is broadly square, with two main rooms at the rear overlooking the garden. There are two smaller rooms, an entrance hall between the front and back rooms on the left side, and a further small room opposite on the right. The house has two storeys with a semi-basement, and a single-storey addition at the rear.

The front elevation, facing Litchdon Street, features a three-window arrangement, with the central windows slightly projected above the eaves level and finished with a pediment-like gable. The semi-basement is rusticated, with a segmental-headed window on the right (louvred) and another on the left. The upper storeys are flanked by giant panelled pilasters. The windows are plain with six-paned sashes, except for the lower sash of the middle first-floor window, which has nine panes. A round-arched doorway, approached by a flight of seven stone steps, is centrally positioned on the ground floor, with a three-panelled door and a fanlight with radial glazing bars. A moulded eaves board is present. Low projections flank the main front, one filling the space between the house and number 22, with a round-arched doorway and sunk oblong panel above. The other projection has a blind round-arched panel with a sash window above, the window featuring two upright glazing bars forming margin-panes.

The garden front, visible from Taw Vale, lacks rustication but retains the giant pilasters. It features a segmental-headed window with small panes in the semi-basement. The left-hand window on each of the upper storeys has sashes with nine panes below and six above, and the second-storey windows have delicate iron guard-rails. Alterations include a canted bay window on the ground floor and two casement windows on the second floor.

The interior, as seen in 1986, featured a modillioned cornice with floral and egg-and-dart enrichment in the entrance hall and stair compartment, with an elliptical arch springing from pilasters with Grecian detail. The first-floor landing has similar finishes. The open-well wooden stair has a cast-iron balustrade with voluted details at the foot, and plain upright bars alternating with decorative open-work panels. Ground-floor rooms on the garden front had a dividing wall removed. There is also an enriched cornice and chandelier boss in the left-hand first-floor room on the garden side.

The house is likely contemporary with numbers 21 and 22, all built around 1839, and they are all shown on Wood’s map of 1843.