Numbers 109-115 And Attached Walls And Gate Piers

Numbers 109-115 and the attached walls and gate piers are a group of four almshouses built in 1845. They are made of squared Devon limestone rubble, with larger blocks used for the quoins, kneelers, and gable parapets. The buildings feature painted freestone dressings and have a slate roof with cream brick stacks at the rear. Designed in a Picturesque Tudor style, the almshouses are arranged in a U-shape with two forward outer gabled bays.

The exterior is two storeys high with a fenestration pattern of 1:3:1. The gabled ranges of Nos 109 on the left and 115 on the right have loopholes at the apexes, and flat arches over 2-light leaded casement windows that have Tudor arches and sunk spandrels for each light. The ground floor windows are taller and have crenellated lintels. The entrances are located in the returns. The central houses feature single-light windows similar to the first-floor outer ones, flanking a hoodmould and double plank doors beneath a blind window with an inscription.

Attached to the outer corners are rubblestone walls approximately 1 meter high and 1 meter long, along with paired gabled gate piers that have roll-moulded ridges and recessed triangular panels at the front.

Historically, these almshouses were first built in 1640 on Torquay Road, funded by Lady Lucy Reynell, the wife of the owner of Forde House. She intended them to provide accommodation for widows, specifically "the relicts of preaching ministers, left poor, without a house of their own." The original building was demolished in 1790 and was rebuilt in East Street, closer to the town center.