Cranfords Restaurant

Cranfords Restaurant

Dartmouth, Fairfax Place

A merchant's house of the late 16th or early 17th century, later refurbished as a Stamp Office and now operating as a cafeteria with residential accommodation above.

The building is constructed with stone rubble side walls and timber-framed front and back walls. Party walls carry stone stacks with 17th-century Dutch brick chimneyshafts, including a distinctive star-shaped shaft of 1664 that is shared with the adjoining property at No.4 The Quay. The roof is slate-covered.

The original plan comprised two rooms with a side passage alongside the northern party wall, built end-on to the street. The three-storey building with attic displays an eclectic Elizabethan style favoured by its 1901 refurbisher, RC Cranford.

The ground floor features a side-passage entrance on the left with a six-panel door and plain overlight. A shop front with guilloche-enriched flanking posts was installed in 1901 but has been substantially altered since the early 20th century for use as a cafeteria, with a deeply recessed central doorway replacing much of the original detail. Above this, the 1901 work is better preserved.

The first floor contains a central oriel with canted sides and moulded mullion-and-transom windows with original stained glass. The corner posts are carved with twists, and an embattled cornice carved with flowers supports a hipped roof with scallop slates rising to a second-floor flowerbox ledge enclosed by ornamental cast-ironwork. Moulded timber framing flanks the oriel, with a carved timber frieze of vines above and pargetted panels bearing the arms of famous Dartmouth sons. Below the oriel is similar decoration with a central panel dated 1901 inscribed with initials RCC and CTC. A further timber frieze below displays carved strapwork and the words "Stamp Office". The second-floor level is slate-hung with bands of shaped slates. Mullion-and-transom windows with sashes sit at the centre, featuring guilloche carving to the king mullion. A carved timber eaves cornice displays a blind arcade. The roof, which runs parallel to the street, features a front four-light gabled half-dormer with apex infilled with ornamental slate-hanging and carved bargeboards on 17th-century-style carved brackets.

The ground-floor interior includes a circular open-string stair with decorated brass balusters, dating from around 1901; a moulded box cornice may be earlier. Surviving earlier work on the upper floors includes a splendid oak-panelled chimneypiece on the first floor, dated 1585, with initials AIC in separate panels and richly carved with fluted pilasters. It now contains a later Adam-style chimneypiece. The rest of the house is said to retain a newel stair and at least one 17th-century panelled door, though access for inspection was not available.

The property was built on land reclaimed from the estuary in the 1580s and was leased by the Plumleigh family from 1585 onwards, into the 18th century. In 1655 the property here was leased to Anthony Plumleigh, a mariner. Fairfax Place and Lower Street subsequently became one of the principal trading streets in Dartmouth, connecting Bayards Cove with the New Quay at the present Boat Float.