Description

BIDEFORD

SS4526 COOPER STREET
842-1/5/81 (North side)
No.1

GV II

Includes: Nos.53, 54 AND 55 MILL STREET.
Shops with offices and living accommodation above. Mid C19.
Solid rendered walls. Slate roof, No 53 Mill Street with
perforated crested red ridge-tiles; No 1 Cooper Street has an
added garret with corrugated-iron roof. The Mill Street range
has 2 stone-rubble chimneys with flat projecting caps, set on
the ridge over the party-walls; red-brick chimney (probably
later) on ridge of Cooper Street range.
3 storeys, with added garret over Cooper Street range. Fronts
of 2 wide bays to Cooper Street and 3 narrower ones to Mill
Street, the bays flanked and separated in the upper storeys by
pilasters standing on a sill-band beneath the second-storey
windows; paired pilasters adjoining the rounded corner.
Towards Cooper Street the ground storey is rusticated, with no
division between the bays, although there is a pilaster-strip
at the right-hand end. Segmental-headed doorway to No 1, with
grey stone doorstep; half-glazed door with solid moulded panel
below and glazing with margin-panes above, the deep fanlight
also with margin-panes framing a round centre panel.
To right, a shop front flanked by pilasters having incised
Greek decoration on the shafts and foliated capitals;
entablature with dentilled architrave, the cornice
eccentrically supported above the pilasters by shaped
brackets. Late C20 aluminium-framed display window. To left of
doorway a flat-headed domestic window with voussoirs incised
in the render; plain wooden frame with transom.
On the corner a shop front (No 55 Mill Street) with display
windows facing both Cooper Street and Mill Street: pilaster at
either end, columns flanking recessed doorway on the splayed
corner; entablature above, the frieze decorated with raised
panels having a pair of guttae below them; display windows
with transom-lights and turned glazing-bars; glazed double
shop-doors with solid moulded panels at the bottom; doorstep
inscribed REED'S CAFE. No 54 has a good C20 shop front with
bowed display windows.
No 53 has an original shop front with pilasters matching those
in Cooper Street; entablature flanked by the same sort of
shaped bracket; display window altered, but an older
triple-shafted column supports the lintel; glazed shop door to
left, with solid moulded bottom panel.
In the upper storeys the right-hand bay to Cooper Street has 3
segmental-headed windows in each storey, the middle ones wider
than those on the outside and emphasised by a small triangular
gable with moulded and modillioned bargeboards, breaking the
line of the eaves-cornice. Windows in the other bays are
generally flat-headed with narrow recessed surrounds.
Second-storey window at No 54 differs in being a canted wooden
bay, probably added in late C19; flanking it are raised
rectangular-shaped panels, these flanked in turn by narrow
pilasters supporting a moulded cornice.
Windows all have barred sashes: 8-paned at No 1 Cooper Street,
6-paned elsewhere, except that the upper sashes in the
third-storey windows at Nos 53-55 Mill Street are 3-paned; the
side-windows at No 1 Cooper Street and the side-lights in the
bay window at No 54 Mill Street are 2-paned.
Narrow entablature with modillioned cornice at eaves-level
round both fronts, except that the cornice is missing at Nos 1
Cooper Street and 55 Mill Street.
INTERIOR not inspected, except that in 1988 No 1 Cooper Street
had an original wooden staircase rising to first floor: cut
strings with shaped step-ends, thin square balusters, each
pair linked by horizontal bars, rounded handrail dipping at
the bottom to form a scroll above a low, lily-patterned iron
newel. In ground storey the stair compartment had a groined
ceiling, finished at the rear with an elliptical arch
springing from moulded imposts. At first-floor landing a
round-headed window with horizontal glazing-bars and
margin-panes containing red and blue glass.

Listing NGR: SS4537126702

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26503795

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

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)