1, Duke Street

This is a merchant's house, likely built around 1639, and now used as a shop with flats above. The property was constructed on land leased to Edward Spurway and has undergone various alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The construction is mixed: the side walls are of thick local stone rubble, while the front and back walls are timber-framed and plastered. There are original stacks within the shared left party wall and a secondary stack in the right wall, both with 19th-century brick chimneyshafts topped with pots. The roof is slate.

The building ends at a right angle to the street, with a single-room plan. It is four storeys high and has a single window front. The stone side walls corbel outward to support the projecting upper floors; on the right side, a stone plaque at first-floor level bears a worn or obscured inscription. The ground floor has a modernised 19th-century timber shop front, with a central window and corner posts leading to a recessed doorway near the left end. A bottom-panelled glazed door with a narrow plain overlight occupies the doorway. A second recessed doorway to the right has a 20th-century part-glazed door with a grille overlight. Upper floors feature tripartite sash windows with central, horned 4-pane sashes.

The interior has largely been modernized in the 19th and 20th centuries. The ground floor has been cleared of partitions, and a rear wall has been removed to connect with numbers 3 Duke Street and 12 The Quay. Some 17th-century carpentry and other features likely remain behind the later plaster.

This house is part of a group built on reclaimed land as part of a Town Corporation scheme to expand the port facilities, beginning as early as 1585. The 1630s phase of building created a fashionable area, and these surviving 17th-century houses are among the best examples of merchants’ houses in Devon, comparing favorably with those found elsewhere in England. They significantly influence the local scale and appearance, impacting later developments in the vicinity.