65, 65 1/2, 67 AND 67A, EAST STREET

Former inn, now divided into four houses, at 65, 65½, 67 and 67A East Street, Ashburton. The building is late medieval in origin, with the major right-hand portion (numbered 65½ to 67A) rebuilt in the early or mid-16th century. It is constructed of solid rendered walls in stone rubble and cob, with a slated roof and four rendered chimneys.

The front elevation is five windows wide and two storeys high. Much has been altered, but number 65½ appears to incorporate a former projecting entrance porch with an adjoining room set off-centre to the left. At the right-hand end stands a stair turret with canted sides. A cart entrance with rooms above opens off Roborough Lane to the rear.

Number 65 features panelled double doors on the ground floor and an 8-paned sash window to the left. The upper storey has a 3-light wood casement window with glazing bars. Number 65½ has a late 20th-century panelled door and a large segmental-headed 20th-century window to its left, with an 8-paned sash window in the upper storey. The left side wall contains two 16th-century single-light windows: a small square-headed window in the ground storey and a taller round-headed window above. A similar square-headed window is set between storeys on the right side wall.

Numbers 67 and 67A share a 5-panelled 19th-century door flanked by an 8-paned sash window, with two matching windows in the upper storey and a 6-paned sash window at a lower level in the centre. A small round-headed stair window sits above the separately listed conduit head attached to the right-hand end, along with three round-headed lights (one now blocked). The right side wall facing Roborough Lane has a small blocked round-arched window to the left of the upper storey, and to its right a partly blocked square-headed window with remains of a hood-mould. The cart entrance has a segmental arch and double plank doors, with two 6-paned sash windows above. A coved eaves-cornice runs across the whole front, returning onto the side of the stair turret.

Interior features, recorded in a 1983 survey, reveal that number 65 (the medieval portion) retains three original roof trusses with clasped purlins, comparable to those formerly at number 33 North Street (demolished 1970). The western gable and centre trusses have sole-plates and ashlar-posts; the purlins are clasped between collar and principal and held in position by an upright timber halved to both collar and principal. The timber is darkened but not certainly smoke-blackened. The east truss is closed with clean wattle-and-daub. The remainder of the building was re-roofed in the 17th or 18th century. A shouldered-head door frame survives in the roof space. Late 16th-century or earlier 17th-century painted plaster survives on one wall of the first-floor right-hand room.

Number 67 contains, in its rear left-hand ground floor room, a beam parallel to the street with hollow and half-round mouldings, turning down at its left-hand end to form the head of a stud. On the first floor to the right is a stud-and-panel partition parallel with the street; the studs have ogee and half-round mouldings at the front and plain chamfers at the rear. Adjoining it (probably re-set) is a shouldered-head door frame. Adjacent to the stairs is linenfold panelling, also probably re-set.

Number 67A has an 18th-century ground floor chimneypiece with an eared architrave, keyblock and moulded cornice, and a cupboard with shaped shelves. A 3-panelled ovolo-moulded door is present on the ground floor with another upstairs. Against the right gable wall on the ground floor is a beam with ogee and quarter-round mouldings.

The building is believed to have been The Spread Eagle Inn.