The Huxtables

The Huxtables is a house, formerly a bakery, with a former shop and cottage, likely dating from the early 18th century. It was altered in the early 19th century when the shop and cottage were probably added or rebuilt. The house is constructed of rendered stone rubble and cob, with a gable-ended scantle-slate roof, hipped at one corner. Parts of the roof have a 20th-century bitumen covering, while the rear wing has an asbestos slate roof. Original features include an early 18th-century dressed stone stack with weatherings and later 19th-century red-brick stacks.

The building has an L-shaped layout. The original 18th-century house is situated at the rear, facing north-east, and comprises a central principal room with a rear staircase, a former kitchen to the left with a front-facing stack, and an unheated room to the right. An L-shaped shop range was added to the east, featuring an integral end stack to the north and a single-room rear wing. A two-room plan cottage adjoins the south, with an axial stack to its right-hand room backing onto a central entrance passage and an integral end stack to its left.

The front of the house is asymmetrical, with a first-floor window featuring 16-pane boxed glazing bars. The ground floor has a pair of doors under a segmental head; an early 19th-century door with six beaded flush panels is on the left, while an older boarded door with strap hinges is on the right. A further small, two-leaf boarded door is also present. A projecting bread oven is at the right-hand end of the range. The shop has a pair of first-floor windows with 16-pane boxed glazing bars, and an early 19th-century shop front consisting of two small-paned flat-roofed square bay windows and a central recessed pair of half-glazed doors with beaded flush lower panels, and a panelled wall to the right. The roofs of the bays form a porch. The cottage has a symmetrical two-window front, featuring 19th-century two-light wooden casements and a 20th-century half-glazed door.

Inside, the rear ground-floor room of the house has an 18th-century cupboard with H-L hinges to the left of the fireplace, and another cupboard on the right-hand wall with raised and fielded panels. A window seat is at the rear, and an early 19th-century four-panelled door leads to the staircase, which rises at the rear of the central room. The central ground-floor room has a rough chamfered spine beam. The early 19th-century staircase has stick balusters and a turned newel to the landing. The ground-floor room in the rear wing of the shop has a wooden lintel over the fireplace, and the first-floor room features an early 19th-century reeded chimney-piece with roundels at the corners. The interior of the cottage was not inspected, but a plastered cross beam was noted. The building occupies a prominent corner location in North Molton, facing onto The Square and the North Heasley road.