The Gannet Public House

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET 842-1/5/130 (North side) No.70 The Gannet Public House

GV II

Wine merchant's shop, now Public House. c1884-5; possibly by A Thorne. Coursed stone rubble with details in red sandstone; ground storey painted. Tarred slate roof. Red-brick chimney, with moulded top cornice, on left side-wall. Eclectic Queen Anne style, with Early Renaissance details to symmetrical front. 3 storeys with garret; 3-window range. Ground storey arranged in 4 bays with pilasters between and at either end. Each contains a round-arched opening with moulded archivolt springing from square half-columns and having a fluted keystone; above the pilasters is a deep entablature, at each end of which is a pedestal carrying a fruit-filled vase in high relief, the pedestals in turn resting on large foliated scroll-brackets; the urns are still unpainted. Much of the detail within the arches appears to have been altered, but the second arch from the right has a transom-light with coloured glass. Upper storeys flanked by pilasters, these being linked across the front between the storeys by an entablature with panelled frieze. Third-storey pilasters rise to a moulded eaves cornice. Windows have moulded architraves and 2-paned sashes, except for the middle second-storey window; this takes the form of a 3-light mullioned-and-transomed bow window with panelled, moulded base and top entablature, the latter surmounted by a patterned iron railing. 3 dormer gables with flanking pilasters and triangular pediments: the pilasters are buttressed by scrolls and the round-arched windows have moulded keystones rising to the apexes of the pediments; 2-paned sashes; the dormers have slate-hung sides. INTERIOR: only partly inspected. Ground-storey bar wholly altered, apart from some moulded ceiling-cornices. Entrance-hall to upper storeys, at the left-hand end, has moulded cornices and floor of patterned coloured tiles. Plain staircase, but at the top a half-glazed door with coloured glass and patterned glazing-bars. Included for group value. (Bideford Weekly Gazette: 23 Sept.: 1884-: P.5; Bideford Weekly Gazette: 1884-: 4 NOV, P.5; Bideford Weekly Gazette: 1888-: 14 AUG, P.5; Ridley: Illustrated Family Almanack: 1880-: P.33; Kelly's Directories: Kelly's Directory of Devonshire: 1889-).

Listing NGR: SS4530326622