65, High Street

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET 842-1/5/125 (North side) 08/11/49 No.65

GV II

House, now offices. Late C18; the left rear wing possibly earlier. Painted brick front and left side-wall on stone ashlar bases; rendered at rear. Hipped slate roof with late C19 crested red ridge-tiles. Chimney on each gable-wall, old red brick to right, rendered to left. 4-square plan with central passage to rear stair compartment, the rear rooms projecting as short wings; the left rear room is a storey lower than the rest, suggesting that it survives from an earlier building on the site. 3 storeys with basement; left rear room 2-storeyed. 3-window range, the outer windows wider than that in the centre. Doorway in middle of ground storey approached by a flight of 5 old stone steps with original patterned iron guard-rails sweeping outwards at the bottom; shoescraper to left; 6-panelled door with knocker, the 2 bottom panels flush, with matching panelled reveals and cobweb fanlight; at either side, fluted Doric pilasters supporting entablature with bracketed cornice. Adjoining windows are canted bays with lean-to slated roofs; 6-paned sashes, entablatures matching doorcase. Upper-storey windows have slightly curved brick arches and barred sashes; 6 over 6 panes in second storey, 3 over 6 in third storey, the outer windows with side-sashes one pane wide. Moulded board below the eaves. INTERIOR: entrance-passage has plain dado with moulded rail and skirting; panelled doors with raised moulding on the panels. Open-well wooden staircase with shaped step-ends and thin, scratch-moulded square balusters; handrail ramped up over column-newels and voluted at foot of stair. Left ground-floor front room has original wooden chimneypiece with metal ornaments; simple white marble chimneypiece in room to right. Barred sashes in rear wall, including tall, round-arched stair window with cobweb glazing in the head.

Listing NGR: SS4525626614