12, Market Place

BIDEFORD

SS4526 MARKET PLACE 842-1/5/160 (North side) No.12

GV II

Former inn, later a restaurant and bakery, now shop. Probably early or mid C19, partly remodelled late C19. Solid rendered front. Slate roof. Red-brick chimney with cream-brick bands and cap (probably including some terracotta) at each end of ridge; cap of left-hand chimney removed. 3 storeys; 4-window range. Ground storey has late C19 shop front with cart-entrance to left, the whole under a deeply-projecting wooden box-cornice. Shop front has 2 display windows on bases of green glazed brick (partly over-painted), canted in the centre towards a recessed glazed door with solid moulded panel at the bottom. Display windows have shafts with moulded capitals at the angles, these having small brackets rising to the window-tops. Shop door has a shaped wooden cresting along the base of a plain fanlight and there is a similar feature forming a fringe along the opening to the street. Behind the fringe is a panelled wooden ceiling. Doorstep has coloured mosaic with inscription: FRIENDSHIP'S CAFE. Cart-entrance has panelled triple-doors. Upper storeys flanked by pilaster-strips with horizontal channelling; cutting across them is a plain raised band above the second storey. Windows mostly have sashes with horns and margin-panes, those in second storey with a shaped and perforated fringe on brackets at the top of the opening. Third window from left in second storey has French windows, each leaf with 2 panes. Right-hand window takes the form of a canted wooden bay in second storey and a 2-light sash in third storey; former has entablature with cornice on paired brackets, the middle sashes having an extra upright glazing-bar in the centre. Deeply-projecting eaves-cornice on paired brackets. INTERIOR: shop has 2 fluted columns, probably of iron. In 1989, white marble chimneypiece on first floor; coloured glass in staircase window. Earlier features may by hidden under plaster. Included for group value. (Laithwaite M: Report to Devon County Council: 1989-: 9.11.89; Ridley: Ridley's Illustrated Bideford Family Almanack: 1878-1880; Wilson: Almanack for Bideford: 1888-1898; Kelly's Directories: Kelly's Directory of Devonshire: 1919-1939).

Listing NGR: SS4526026530