5, Higher Street

Merchant's house with shop at 5 Higher Street, Dartmouth. Built on a medieval site, the main house dates from around 1635, though parts of the rear may be earlier. The building underwent a major repair programme around 1960.

The construction is of mixed character: timber-framed front elevation with stone rubble rear and side walls. Stone stacks rise from the front side walls, fitted with circa 1960 brick chimneyshafts. The roof is slated.

The plan comprises three rooms in depth, divided by stone crosswalls. A newel stair occupies an alcove in the north side wall within the narrow centre section, accessed via a side passage through the front part.

The exterior shows a well-preserved ornamental front elevation, three storeys with attics contained in the roofspace, narrowing to two storeys in the middle section and single storey at the rear. The front is jettied with corbelled ends to the side walls at each floor and a gabled roof. The one-bay front displays exceptional decorative detail. The ground floor contains a twentieth-century shop front, probably replacing a nineteenth-century predecessor. A side passage door stands recessed at the left end, with two steps up to a twentieth-century plank door and plain overlight. The shop doorway is recessed right of centre, fitted with a twentieth-century glazed door and overlight. Shop windows contain glazing bars with brick ventilators below.

Seventeenth-century moulded small-panel framing decorates the first and second floors. Windows are mostly original and mullioned, reglazed with iron casements and diamond panes of leaded glass, reusing a good number of old panes. The first floor features a continuous range of windows with a splendid wide central oriel of 5:5 front lights, incorporating a king mullion, corner posts and a richly carved second-floor fascia board. The oriel rests on five brackets carved mostly as fabulous beasts. Two smaller second-floor oriels with four forward lights each share a slated lean-to roof. The attic storey is not jettied and is slate-hung with a central three-light casement. The gabled roof projects forward with old, probably original, carved bargeboards, supported on carved oak brackets resting against the party walls. The roof steps down to the middle room and again to the rear section, which includes various nineteenth and twentieth-century windows.

The interior of the front part is wholly seventeenth century and exceptionally well-preserved. The ground floor is spanned by a plain-chamfered crossbeam. The side passage is lined by a moulded plank-and-muntin screen; the original doorcase contains a late twentieth-century door. A twentieth-century stair ascends to the first floor. The front principal parlour has a plastered crossbeam with a twentieth-century partition below. An original ornamental plaster ceiling displays a single rib pattern enriched with large angle sprays and cherub heads. The fireplace features an oak lintel moulded with a low Tudor arch; two smaller versions occur on the second floor. A newel stair to the second floor rises around a mast-like post. Two second-floor front chambers are divided by an axial scratch-moulded plank-and-muntin screen, each with its own fireplace. The roof over three bays comprises A-frame trusses with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars and butt purlins. A stair within the front block accesses the attic. Apart from the newel stair and a nineteenth-century door with a seventeenth-century carved frieze reset against a wall, nothing of antiquity is visible in the rear parts, although the walls are very thick. Roofs in this section are inaccessible and ceilings are plastered.

This is an exceptionally well-preserved high-quality merchant's house.