Warmington'S Garage

BIDEFORD

SS4526 BRIDGELAND STREET 842-1/5/27 (North side) No.7 Warmington's Garage

GV II

Large house, now garage with flats above. Mid C19, but said to retain substantial portions of the first house on the site, built in 1692. Solid rendered Italianate front. Slate roof. Rendered chimney on each side-wall of front range, the moulded caps decorated with large-scale egg-and-dart. L-shaped plan with double-depth front range and rear wing to left; staircase right of centre in rear section of front range. 3 storeys; 3-window range. Ground storey wholly cut away (apart from a few structural walls) to insert garage. Ground storey has 2 large, inserted garage-entrances, but origianl doorway remains in centre. Half-glazed door (probably an inner door originally) with 2 solid moulded panels in the lower part. Moulded cornice at sill-level in second storey. Outer windows in upper storeys are of 3 lights; middle windows of 1 light. Second-storey windows have pilasters between and flanking the lights, these supporting entablatures. Third-storey windows have moulded eared architraves and bracketed sills. Both storeys have plain sashes; upper sashes in the 3-light windows have curved top corners, while sashes in the middle windows (probably later replacements) have horns. Grand top entablature with dentilled architrave and bracketed cornice. INTERIOR not inspected, except for staircase in front range. This is of mid C19 character up to first floor, with ornate cast-iron balusters and continuous wooden handrail. Above that it has pulvinated wooden strings probably dating from the 1692 house; thin, square balusters of C19. According to J R L Thorp: 'The room over the kitchen .... has a moulded plaster cornice and good bolection chimneypiece .... A rear block behind the left end of the house contains some particularly good joinery and plaster detail'. The building now occupies a site originally laid out by the Feoffees of the Long Bridge (now the Bideford Bridge Trust) and first leased in 1692 to Thomas Hammet, merchant. (Thorp JRL: Programme of Devon Buildings Group Summer Conference at Bideford: 1987-: BRIDGE TRUST DOC).

Listing NGR: SS4541426827