43, HIGH STREET (See details for further address information)

This is a late medieval merchant’s house, dating from the 14th or early 15th century, located on High Street, Totnes. It represents the best-preserved example of a “deux corps de batiments” type house in the town. The front bay, which served as a shop, was rebuilt and raised in the later 16th century, likely by the Bogan family, with remodelling of the rear premises happening at the same time. A detached medieval kitchen was incorporated into the main house in the 17th century, and a former small courtyard was infilled. The front elevation was refaced in the earlier 19th century. The building is three storeys high and features two windows. It has a modern slate roof, timber framing, and slate hanging on the front, topped by a coved eaves cornice. The front features paired second-floor sash windows with architraves, and paired first-floor sash windows with side lights. A ground-floor loggia, supported by Tuscan columns and an entablature, extends over the pavement, with an entrance leading to a side passage on the west. The shop front incorporates 19th-century masonry party walls and windows with columnnetted mullions.

The rear premises retain a 14th/15th-century moulded bressumer to the first floor on the west side and remnants of a 10-light mullioned window below, which formerly served the medieval hall on the ground floor. The hall window has a moulded surround and traces of wrought iron stay bars, though it has been altered to a 2-light sash window. The hall contains a fine 14th/15th-century fireplace with attached columns to the jambs, featuring foliated caps, vase-type bases, moulded granite corbels, and a sloping hood with a mantle, functioning as sconce brackets. A former medieval chamber above the hall retains vestiges of a similar, smaller fireplace.

The former hall houses a ceiling with decorated Elizabethan plasterwork, including ribwork and beams enriched with strapwork and tulip motifs, which obscures earlier moulded ceiling beams. A ground-floor doorway from the hall leads to a former gallery, featuring a 15th/16th-century wooden, four-centred arched head with a chamfered surround and original door hooks. The front room on the first floor, a former Elizabethan fore-hall, has a decorated plaster ceiling with ribwork and medallions inscribed “E.B.” and “W.B.”, referencing Elizabeth and William Bogan, mayor of Totnes. A contemporary chimney piece of Beere stone is present, incorporating a low arched head within a square opening, shields in the spandrels, and an overmantel with lozenges and medallions in strapwork with rosettes, featuring a relieving arch above which is similar to a fireplace at No. 11 High Street. The ground-floor shop retains chamfered ceiling beams with run-out stops, as does the present kitchen which occupies the site of the former small court and gallery. The square medieval kitchen block, built of random Devonian limestone rubble, remains although it has been considerably altered, with later staircases, openings, and a new roof.