12 and 14, Above Town

A pair of houses, likely dating from the late 18th or early 19th century, and possibly with earlier origins, are situated in Above Town, Dartmouth. The buildings have undergone some later modernisation. The walls are mostly plastered, with stone rubble side walls. The upper part of the front of No.12 is timber-framed and clad with asbestos slate above the first floor, while the front of No.14 is plastered to resemble ashlar and features a reeded timber cornice at first-floor level. A projection on the left end of No.14 indicates an earlier house previously stood on the site. The doorway on the left of No.14 has a 20th-century door behind a shallow, contemporary plastered porch with a monopitch slate roof. The front of No.14 features a one-window front of flush-frame, horned four-pane sashes. No.12 has a plastered ground floor, with asbestos slate-hanging above. Its left-hand doorway has a fielded three-panel door under a plain overlight, topped by a timber hood supported on brackets carved as rearing horses – these are reused brackets from a 17th-century merchant’s house. The windows of No.12 originally consisted of twelve-pane sashes to the ground and first floors, and a three-by-six-pane sash to the second floor. Both houses have a moulded timber eaves cornice to a parallel roof, hipped at both ends. The interiors were not inspected but are likely to be of interest.