52, Fore Street

This is a circa 1692 merchant's house of the "deux corps de batiments" type. A gallery survives, and the back block retains a 17th-century external staircase and a mullioned window. Sash windows were likely installed by Mayor Reynell Mitchell in 1784. The building is three storeys and an attic, with a three-window front. It has a Welsh slate roof with moulded bargeboards to the gable. The south side shares party walls of Devonian limestone with the adjacent building, number 50. The front is timber-framed with a rendered finish, and the first and second floors are jettied, supported by moulded wooden bressumers. A decorative eaves bracket on the south side is carved with a dragon and a lion. The attic has architraved, paired sash windows with glazing bars. The first and second floors feature three-light oriel sash windows with architraves and glazing bars. A modern shopfront retains a coved cornice from the 18th century; a lead rainwater pipe is also from the 18th century.

Inside, there is an original open staircase that rises the full height of the building, with a closed string, turned balusters, square newels with ball finials, a panelled dado, and a moulded handrail. The front room on the first floor (formerly the fore-hall) has a raised and fielded panel dado, a coved plaster cornice, a plaster ceiling decorated in high relief with wreathed panels and cherubs, and a decorated plaster panel above the fireplace bearing the initials "LSB" and the date "1692." Sections of Chinese-style wallpaper date to circa 1740-50. Some original raised and fielded panel doors remain. The gallery has been rebuilt but incorporates the late 17th-century external staircase leading to a cottage, with a closed string, turned balusters, square newels with ball finials, and a moulded handrail. The back block, now a cottage and formerly the kitchen, was altered in the early 19th century but has retained a mullioned ground floor window with six lights, ovolo mouldings, leaded lights, and a hoodmould.