No 20 Including Rear Building

This is an early or mid-18th century house with a late 19th-century shop front, and a mid-18th century rear building. The property, located on Buttgarden Street in Bideford, includes a building to the rear facing Honestone Street. It was formerly a Temperance Hotel.

The front building is of solid rendered construction, with hipped slate roofing. It has a two-window range facing Buttgarden Street, and an irregularly windowed return front facing Honestone Street. The shop front extends around the splayed corner, featuring pilaster strips topped with consoles supporting square panelled blocks, forming the terminals of an entablature with a bracketed cornice. It has two display windows with three panes each, and a half-glazed double door with moulded lower panels. Raised quoins are present at the left-hand end of the ground and second storeys. The upper storeys have windows with raised flat surrounds, with the jambs extended above the lintel, and the lintels extended beyond the jambs; these windows contain two-paned sashes with central upright glazing-bars, those in the third storey having flush frames. The return front has similar surrounds, though the jambs are not extended and the ground-floor doorway and adjacent window have slightly pointed lintels. A doorway on the left-hand end has stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, housing a four-panelled door with an old letterbox. Two small windows with single panes in moulded wooden frames are located to the right, with a plank loading-door above the right-hand window. A single window is present in the third storey, featuring four-paned sashes in recessed box frames.

The rear building has a three-window range with a large round-arched doorway replacing the right-hand ground-floor window, and a loading-door in place of the middle second-floor window. The doorway has a stepped surround with a keystone, and double doors with two moulded panels and a fanlight (now boarded in). The windows have surrounds similar to the front building, with continued lintels; the ground and second-floor lintels are slightly pointed. They contain two-paned sashes with a single upright glazing-bar, those in the third storey having horns. A loading-bay has double plank doors matching the window surrounds. The left side-wall has a third-storey window matching the Honestone Street frontage. An interior inspection was not possible.

In 1870, Richard Powe, a shopkeeper and cowkeeper, operated at No. 20. By 1892, the property was advertised as Powe’s Temperance Hotel and Dining Rooms.