Description

BARNSTAPLE

SS5632 LITCHDON STREET
684-1/5/187 (North East side)
11/03/87 Nos.10 AND 11
Litchdon Pottery, including bottle
kilns and all buildings on the site

GV II

Showrooms and pottery. Showroom to left of Litchdon Street
frontage 1886-7. By WC Oliver of Barnstaple. Former showroom
to right may be slightly earlier. Pale cream brick with
horizontal bands and window arches of red brick; stone and
terracotta detailing. Slated roofs with crested red
ridge-tiles, except for the right-hand showroom, which is
covered with corrugated asbestos. Cream brick chimney on each
side wall, the left-hand chimney with ornamental pots.
Buildings consist of showrooms on Litchdon Street frontage,
the right-hand side converted to storeroom. In centre an
archway with building above, leading to warehouses, 2 bottle
kilns and other industrial buildings in 2 long wings at rear.
The site extends back to Trinity Street. Showrooms on frontage
are in 2 parts: 2-storeyed range to left, extending over
archway, 3-storeyed range to right.
The left-hand range, which is the better of the 2, is 4-window
range. To left, 2 large display windows, the glass in upper
part decorated with foliage and, in gilt lettering, the
inscriptions reading BY APPOINTMENT TO H.M. THE QUEEN and BY
APPOINTMENT TO H.R.H. PRINCESS CHRISTIAN. Doorway with pointed
arch on splayed corner to right. Above, across whole front, an
entablature with coved underside and frieze of terracotta
panels decorated with flowers and foliage. Upper storey has
mullioned-and-transomed window, also with coloured glass. The
terracotta frieze is continued below it, and at either side
are more terracotta panels decorated with birds and squirrels.
Above window on the roof, a goblet with imitation timber
framing.
Range to right is 2-window range in 2nd storey, the left-hand
window set in the splayed corner. Ground storey has been
altered, but on the splay is a blocked doorway with moulded
stone 2-centred arch enclosed by a rectangular carved stone
frame. 2nd-storey windows are of 2 lights to left and 3 lights
to right. These have chamfered mullions and moulded pointed
arches of stone, the latter with relieving arches of red
brick; in the heads of the arches are red and crack-glazed
tiles decorated with flowers and foliage. 3rd-storey has 3
windows, each of 2 lights with plain stone mullions; cill-band
of glazed blue tiles. Heavily moulded top cornice of stone and
brick with imitation mechicolations.
INTERIOR and rear buildings not inspected, but left-hand
showroom retains some of its original decoration. This may be
the showroom refurbished in 1903; ceiling of `Tynecastle' in
Louis XV style, anaglypta frieze by Owen Davies of London, who
designed pottery for Brannam's.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the pottery dated from at least 1830,
possibly from C17; it was acquired before 1840 by the Brannam
family who ran it until 1979. It is now owned by Candy & Co
Ltd of Newton Abbot.
(Barnstaple Castle Records, Committee Minute Book, 26.1.87;
Brannam P: A Family Business: 1982-; Devon County Sites and
Monuments Register, Exeter; North Devon Journal: 4.11.1886:
1886-; North Devon Journal: 18.2.1887: 1887-; North Devon
Journal: 18.6.1903: 1993-).

Listing NGR: SS5602532901

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26664998

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
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  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)