4, North Street

ASHBURTON

SX7569 NORTH STREET 849-1/10/104 (East side) 07/08/51 No.4

GV II

House and shop; reputed to have been the Mermaid Inn in C17. Late medieval, remodelled C16/17; mid C19 shop front. Rendered solid front; granite archway. Slated roof. Stone-rubble chimney with tapered cap on each gable end. 2 storeys with garret. 2 widely-spaced windows wide. To right of ground storey a chamfered, pointed granite arch; recessed within it a studded plank door with square-headed C17 wood frame, ovolo and hollow-moulded with urn stops. To left of it a blocked doorway (now a 2-paned shop window) with lower jamb stones of chamfered granite; relieving arch of slatestone voussoirs. Remainder of ground storey occupied by shop front with half-glazed door flanked by 4-paned canted display windows. Entablature across the whole shop front, surmounted by a name board and blindcase. Upper storey has 8-paned sash windows in recessed box-frames; these are set in wider blocked openings with the terminals of former hood-moulds at either end. 2 pent-roofed dormers, their lower parts cutting into the top of the wall; small-paned Yorkshire sash to left, 3-light wood casement with 3 panes per light to right. Town houses with medieval exterior detail are very rare in Devon. In 1646, during the Civil War, General Fairfax is traditionally believed to have made his headquarters here. In 1637 Lawrence Blundell placed a »4 per annum rent charge on the Mermaid Inn, payable to Ashburton Grammar School. (Pilkington F: Ashburton. The Dartmoor Town: Callington, Cornwall: 1978-: 72; White W: Directory of Devonshire: Sheffield: 1850-: 464).

Listing NGR: SX7560169906