29, Bridgeland Street

BIDEFORD

SS4526 BRIDGELAND STREET 842-1/5/45 (South side) No.29

GV II

House, now offices and shop. 1690s, probably altered and enlarged in early C18; refronted mid C19. Solid rendered front. Slate roof. Small C20 red-brick chimney on left party-wall; old red-brick chimney on right party-wall, probably shared with No 28. Double-fronted, double-depth, plan with rear wing (of at least early C18) to left; staircase compartment in right-hand rear section of main building. 3 storeys, the top storey really a garret masked by heightening the front wall in C19; 4-window range with doorway in place of second ground-storey window from right. Mid or late C19 shop front at left-hand side of ground storey, this and the house-doorway set under a continuous moulded cornice supported by consoles at either side of doorway and at left-hand end of shop front; 2 display windows with patterned iron grilles at the top, canted in centre towards a glazed door with solid shaped panel at the bottom. House-door 6-panelled. Windows flat-headed to right of ground storey and in third storey; segmental-headed in second storey. All have moulded architraves and (in the second and third storeys only) bracketed sills; plain sashes with horns. Bracketed eaves cornice. Rear elevations much altered, but rear wing has some old barred sashes. INTERIOR: ground storey altered in C19, except for original open-well staircase, which rises to the garret. This has closed, pulvinated strings, stout turned balusters, broad moulded handrail and square newels with turned pendants; the flat caps of the newels are C20 replacements. The 2 left-hand first-floor rooms of the main building have late C17 or early C18 box-cornices; the rear room has a 2-panelled door of similar date and a late C17 cupboard with sunk bolection-moulded panelled doors on ornate H-hinges. Right-hand front room has 2-panelled door and wooden chimneypiece (probably early C18) with moulded architrave, pulvinated frieze and moulded cornice. Front room in wing has moulded cornice, probably early C18. Garret has heavy roof-timbers (cased in), probably original. Left-hand front room has door with 2 vertical moulded panels; probably late C17, but with C18 strap-hinges. Right-hand front room has good mid or late C19 cast-iron chimneypiece. Rear wing has similar 2-panelled door to that at the front with the same type of hinges, but the panels are narrower: probably all C18. Old roof-timbers exposed; lighter scantling than in main building. This house originally belonged to the Bideford Bridge Trust, and, like the rest of their Bridgeland Street properties, was probably built in the early 1690s. (Bridge Trust Surveys: A1/15-16; Fielder D: A History of Bideford: 1985-: PLATE 22).

Listing NGR: SS4544126793