1, Lower Street

DARTMOUTH

SX874510 LOWER STREET 673-1/8/156 (East side) No.1

GV II

Merchant's house, now shop with offices over. Probably first half of the C17, with C19 and C20 modernisations. Mixed construction; stone rubble southern party wall, other walls are plastered timber-framing; stack with C19 brick chimneyshaft; slate roof. PLAN: It is the front block and gallery of a C17 gallery-and-back-block house. First-floor gallery connecting front block to the rear block, now No.1 Mansion House Street (qv), across a former courtyard, now infilled and part of the shop. Former front block cleared for shop at ground-floor level but probably original 2-room plan survives on the upper floors with newel stair between them on the left side. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with attics; one-window front, with window to curving front corner and irregular 2-window front onto Mansion House Street. Walls are plastered and lightly blocked out as ashlar. Only the stair window with its early C20 stained glass and dormer above with casement with glazing bars are earlier than c1989 when other windows replaced with uPVC windows without glazing bars. Ground floor has altered C19 timber shop front which returns one bay down Mansion House Street behind the recessed doorway which now contains a C20 door. Plain eaves. Roof is hipped to the front and gable-ended to rear. Gallery behind is weather-boarded and now sits above the flat-roofed infill of the courtyard which contains a C20 door giving access to the offices. INTERIOR: Largely shows the result of the C19 and C20 nodernisations. Ground floor has been cleared of all partitions for the present shop. The beams are boxed in although a short section of a C17 beam with multiple mouldings is exposed at the foot of the C20 stair from ground- to first-floor level. C17 newel stair above rising round a mast-like pine newel post. No other early carpentry or joinery is exposed and the fireplaces are blocked by C19 and C20 grates. Roof not inspected. A rare surviving example of a gallery-and-back-block house with its original gallery.

Listing NGR: SX8781051217