The Old Custom House

BIDEFORD

SS4526 BRIDGELAND STREET 842-1/5/21 (North side) 08/11/49 Nos.1 AND 1A The Old Custom House (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGELAND STREET (North side) No.1 Bridgeland House)

GV II

House, later the Customs House, now a public house. 1695, remodelled with rear additions in early and mid C19. Solid rendered walls. Slate roof. Rendered chimney on rear wall. 2 storeys with garret; 4-window range, with doorway in place of second ground-storey window front left. Windows have shaped surrounds; sashes with margin-panes. Raised band above ground storey. 3 gabled dormers with pierced, patterned bargeboards; sashes with margin-panes. Gable-end facing The Quay has 2-storeyed, 3-light bay window with rounded corners and top entablature; sashes with glazing-bars. Garret window matches those on Bridgeland Street front. Gable decorated with 3 ball-finials. At rear a rounded stair turret with round-arched window containing 18-pane fixed sash with radial bars at the top. Adjoining it on either side, additions with late C20 slate-hanging. To right, facing the Ropewalk, a former warehouse; ground storey altered, but upper storey retains C19 loading-door flanked by sash-windows with margin-panes. INTERIOR: ground storey only inspected, completely altered. Rear staircase has thin, square-section balusters. Bideford Bridge Trust lease of 20.5.1695 grants newly erected house on this site to Nathaniel Gascoyne, carpenter, who had laid out Bridgeland Street in 1690. Lease of 1832 says building 'now used as the Custom House'; it was no longer used for this purpose by 1890. (Thorp J: Programme of Devon Buildings Group Summer Conference, 1987: 1987-: NOTES-BRIDGELAND ST; Bideford Historic Buildings Survey, Notes; Bideford Bridge Trust Account Book: 1).

Listing NGR: SS4548926825