The Old Manse

DARTMOUTH

SX874510 NEWCOMEN ROAD 673-1/8/195 (East side) Nos.49 AND 50 The Old Manse

GV II

Includes: Nos.36 AND 37 LOWER STREET. Pair of houses, built over another pair of houses with shops. c1864. Mixed construction; lower and rear walls of snecked limestone with painted stone ashlar dressings, upper walls are plastered, some of it on timber-framing; stone rubble stacks and a brick stack with chimneyshaft and tall Tudor-style terracotta chimneypots; slate roof. PLAN: Large building on a prominent wedge-shaped site on a steep slope, with the Newcomen Road houses built on top of houses with shops fronting Lower Street below. EXTERIOR: Eclectic High Victorian style. 2-storey elevation to Newcomen Road and 4-storey elevation to Lower Street. The Newcomen Road front has an irregular 2-window gabled front, an unbalanced 'M' to No.50 to left and then the separate gabled front end of the No.49 crosswing. Both are plastered on a plinth of snecked limestone. Internal porch to No.50 has 2-bay front, cranked, almost triangular, arches supported on a slender column with moulded base and large capital carved as foliage. Entrance through left arch and plinth ramped down across right arch in front of the steps. Door, porch internal windows, and windows to irregular front are all late C20 replacements. No.49 has a window to each floor and here the top lights remain, showing that they were originally mullion-and-transomed. Tall narrow arch to doorway, which is recessed behind flight of steps and now contains a C20 glazed door. Gables have open bargeboards with timber apex pendants. To Nos 36 and 37 Lower Street, the style of the other side is carried round the narrow north end above second-floor level here, containing the Tudor-style brick stack on the end, round to the adjacent 2-window section which projects forward on a jetty carried on shaped brackets, its tall gable surmounted by a large wrought-iron ornamental finial. Remainder of this side is snecked stone. Ground floor has original stone shop fronts each end with recessed doorways alongside, all flanked by large panelled pilasters with Corinthian capitals under massive double brackets to a dogtooth frieze over the fascia, which carries round the brackets which are surmounted by large ball finials. To right the shop front carried round to north end in same style. Both houses have regular but not symmetrical 3-window fronts; chamfered stone window surrounds, and the original windows are timber with moulded mullions and transoms, several have been replaced. Top windows, to the Newcomen Street houses, are half dormers with cranked-arch heads, either half-hipped or gabled with shaped bargeboards. INTERIORS: Not inspected but likely to be of interest. HISTORY: This large building providing 4 houses and 2 shops was built with the construction of Newcomen Road, a new road intended to connect Southtown to the town quays in 1864. Included for group value.

Listing NGR: SX8780651148