Torridge Inn

The Torridge Inn is an early 19th-century former public house, with alterations made in the mid-19th century. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble, with a partial rear wall featuring 19th-century timber framing and red brick nogging. The roof is hipped and slate-covered, with large original red brick chimneys at each end of the ridge, featuring well-moulded pots. The building originally comprised a three-room front section with a stair-hall between the two left-hand rooms, and a two-room rear wing including the original kitchen. It has three storeys plus a cellar, and a four-window front, with a fifth window on the rounded corner to the left. The doorway has a moulded raised surround supported by enriched consoles, and double doors, each with two flush panels. Windows are sashes with 8 over 8 panes, except for the third-storey windows, which have only 4 panes, and the windows on the rounded corner displaying 10 over 10 panes with upper third-storey sashes containing only 5 panes. Raised cement quoins are visible at the right-hand end of the front. The right gable-wall has two visible third-storey sash windows; the front window has 4 over 8 panes, and the rear window has 2 over 2 panes.

The interior retains much original detail from both the early 19th century and the mid-19th century. A wooden dog-leg staircase features closed strings, thin square balusters, and a handrail ramped over column-newels. The front ground-floor rooms on the left and right have dados with moulded rail and skirting; the left-hand room’s rail is reeded. This room also retains a good mid/late 19th-century panelled wooden bar. The kitchen has its original fireplace with a shelf on shaped brackets. All four rooms have original cupboards with panelled doors featuring two-fillet ovolo-mouldings. On the first floor, doors are 2, 4, and 6-panelled, similarly moulded. The left-hand front room has a dado with a reeded rail, and a late-19th-century stone chimneypiece with imitation marbling and coloured patterned tiles. The middle and right-hand front rooms have simple original wood chimneypieces; the one to the right includes a cast-iron grate. The original roof structure features a king-post and ridge trusses. The cellar has stone steps, a stone and brick floor, wine racks, and slate shelves. The building was marked as the Torridge Inn on Wood’s 1842 Map of Bideford, and it ceased operating as a public house in 1989.