4, Buttgarden Street

This is a house believed to have been built between 1814 and 1820 in Bideford. It has a rendered exterior, a slate roof that is hipped to the left, and rendered chimney stacks on each gable. The building follows a double-depth plan, with two rooms wide, incorporating a central entrance passage leading to a rear staircase. A small, later annexe is situated to the left. The main building has a basement and a garret and is two storeys high.

The front elevation has a two-window range, with a round-arched doorway positioned between the ground-floor windows. The annexe is one window wide. The ground floor features horizontal channelling with voussoirs and keystones. A deeply-recessed door is accessed by four old stone steps, with the channelling extending into the sides of the recess. The door itself is six-panelled, with a knocker and a fanlight containing radial bars; a round-headed shoescraper is inset within the right jamb. Flanking pilasters run up the front facade, stopping short of the eaves. Continuous sills run along the second storey. The windows are barred sashes with 8 over 8 panes to the left of the ground floor, 8 over 12 panes to the right, and 12 over 12 panes in each window on the second floor. The annexe includes a canted bay window on its upper storey.

The rear elevation, visible from Bideford Bridge, features a canted bay window and a small-paned, round-arched stair window.

The interior features an entrance passage with an enriched cornice and a round-arched opening to the rear, framed by pilasters. A wooden staircase with a voluted foot rises to the garret, and has slender turned balusters with square necking-pieces, some of which are iron; the treads have moulded nosings. Most rooms contain six-panelled doors, panelled shutters, and moulded plasterwork. The left front ground-floor room, the left front first-floor room, the rear left front room, and the rear left first-floor room are particularly well-preserved, with enriched cornices, friezes, ceiling bands, and foliated chandelier bosses. The ground-floor left front room has a grey veined marble chimneypiece with attached columns, paired with a cast-iron grate and coloured tiles. The first-floor left rear room has a simpler white marble chimneypiece with a cast-iron basket grate. A slate-flagged floor is present in the original kitchen, on the ground-floor left rear. One exposed roof truss reveals a high collar supporting a kingpost, along with vertical struts rising from the tie-beam to the principal rafters. It is reported that the original owner was a surgeon.