27, Bridgeland Street

This is a house, likely built in the early 1690s, and later altered considerably in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It now serves as offices. The building’s appearance has been modified over time, with a storey added, enlargement, and general refurbishment. It is constructed of rendered walls, topped with a slate roof featuring late 19th-century crested red ridge tiles. Brick chimney stacks are present on each gable end.

The building’s original layout, shared with several other houses on Bridgeland Street, includes a two-room front range with a central through-passage, and a long rear wing to the left containing a staircase and a former kitchen. Later additions include a smaller rear wing on the right and a short extension to the through-passage. The house is three storeys high, with a five-window front.

The ground floor is horizontally channelled and features a round-arched doorway framed by attached Doric columns and an entablature with a modillioned cornice. The door itself has four moulded panels above and a St Andrew's Cross pattern of four flush panels below, with matching panelled surrounds. Fluted half-columns and an entablature with a modillioned cornice frame the canted bay windows on either side of the doorway. The upper floors have raised cement quoins, and the window heads are finished with raised cement voussoirs. Windows throughout the three storeys are predominantly six-paned sash windows, though the third-floor window above the centre has a two-light wood casement with three panes to each light, and the upper sashes are three-paned. A dentilled eaves cornice is topped with a small blocking course.

Inside, a late 18th-century wooden staircase has slender turned balusters, square necking pieces, shaped step ends, and a ramped handrail over column newels. Several rooms feature boxed or moulded cornices, with the right rear first-floor room also having a fluted frieze. Original features include late 18th and early 19th-century wooden and marble fireplaces and six-panelled doors. The rear wall has small-paned sashes and wood casements, including a tall round-arched window above the entrance to the through-passage.

The house was built in 1692 for Thomas Morcombe, a mariner from Bideford, under lease from the Feoffees of Bideford Bridge.