6, Foss Street

This is a shop with living accommodation above, likely dating from the 18th century, although it may have earlier origins. It has undergone some 19th and 20th century alterations, and the rear of the building was substantially rebuilt following damage during the Second World War. The construction is a mix of stone rubble with a plastered timber-framed front, featuring a right-hand stack with a rendered chimneyshaft and old pots, and a slate roof.

The original plan likely comprised two rooms deep, with a passage on the left-hand side. The front elevation is three storeys high, with a two-window range. A shop front of the late 19th century, with two bays and slender central glazing bars, occupies the ground floor, alongside a recessed doorway featuring a bottom-panelled glazed door and plain overlight. The shop fascia is likely from the 18th century, incorporating a row of triglyphs beneath a moulded cornice and fret patterns in the soffit. Fluted Doric columns supported the right end in 1839, as evidenced by a street painting; these have since been replaced by slender iron posts contemporary with the shop front. The upper floors feature tall eight-pane sashes on the first floor and three-quarter-pane sashes on the second. A plain eaves line tops the gabled roof.

A thick wall on the right-hand side, dating to the 17th century, projects into the street, with the upper floors corbeling out to create jettied upper storeys. The building was once part of one of Dartmouth’s finest 17th century merchant's houses, destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943. The ground-floor interior has few original features, apart from a 19th-century fireplace with a brick segmental arch.

Foss Street follows the route of a medieval dyke which dammed a tidal creek and included a tide mill. The mill pool was filled in and developed between 1820 and 1830, although houses were built along Foss Street from the 17th century onwards.