Conservative Club

The Conservative Club, located at Nos. 8 and 8A Victoria Road in Dartmouth, is a large building likely formed by combining two or three houses. It dates from around 1830, with some alterations made in the 20th century. The structure is built of plastered stone rubble and some painted stone rubble, featuring end and rear stacks with rendered brick chimney shafts and pots, topped with a hipped slate roof.

The main part of the building is a double-depth square corner house, two rooms wide, with a third room on the left (west) that is set back slightly. No. 8A is a block that faces Ivy Lane behind the third room and projects slightly further to the left. There is also a rear block behind the right end that faces Charles Street.

The exterior is two storeys high. The main block has a symmetrical three-window front that is lightly blocked out to resemble ashlar and is flanked by plain end pilasters. The central round-headed doorway features a flat stucco surround with a moulded cornice and a recessed, unusual round-headed six-panel door with a good original cast-iron knocker. The windows are 16-pane sash types with Tudor-style stucco hood moulds, and the label stops are distinctive lions' heads with swags. A moulded eaves cornice and parapet extend around to the left over the recessed two-window section, which also has 16-pane sashes.

To the left, the rear block facing Ivy Lane has a two-window front with large horned 16-pane sashes, and the wall is made of painted stone rubble at ground-floor level. The right end, facing Charles Street and overlooking Market Square, includes a service door at the rear, a couple of ground-floor 12-pane sash windows, and two horned four-pane sashes at the back.

The interior has not been inspected. This building is part of a notable group of houses and shops from the second quarter of the 19th century along New Road (now Victoria Road), which was constructed in 1825 to allow horse-drawn carriages to access the town for the first time.