7, Church Close

7 Church Close is a small house located in Dartmouth, dating from the early to mid-17th century, with some late 19th-century modernisation. The building features mixed construction, with stone rubble side walls and a timber-framed front, where some framing is exposed while other areas are plastered and lightly blocked out to resemble ashlar. It has a stone stack at the right end with a rendered chimney shaft and pots, topped with a slate roof.

The house has a small one-room plan with a secondary service extension at the rear. It stands three storeys high with a single-window front. The late 19th-century modernisation respects the style and much of the original 17th-century fabric. Each floor level is jettied, and the ground floor is plastered, featuring an original oak doorframe to the left with a multiple moulded surround and large carved stops, now painted. To the right, there is a late 19th-century canted bay with casements that lack glazing bars, but alternate panes are filled with an attractive pattern of painted leaded glass.

All jetties have plain plastered soffits, and the ends of the joists are concealed by front boards. The first floor displays exposed 17th-century framing, with moulded rails and muntins around small panels and blocked 2-light ovolo-mullioned windows on either side of the central canted bay, which is styled similarly to the ground floor, except for 17th-century brackets carved as bearded men with breasts and contemporary chip-carved timber panels between the brackets. The second floor is plastered and features a similar canted bay with plain shaped brackets. The jettied attic contains a small casement with glazing bars beneath a full-width gable, which has a cross roof that extends back to the main gable-ended roof running parallel to the street.

Inside, the house shows the effects of 19th and 20th-century modernisation, with all structural timbers plastered over and the fireplaces blocked by secondary grates. The only exposed 17th-century feature is a short length of timber screen immediately inside the front doorway, which is late 17th-century and has full-height bolection-moulded panels.