Description

1.
5180 FORE STREET
(South Side)
------------
No 70
(Elizabethan House and
Local Museum)
SX 8060 SW 1/35B
SX 8060 SW 2/35B 7.1.52.

I GV

2.
Later C16 or early C17 merchant's house. A good example of the Elizabethan, West
Country development of Pantin's right-angled house type with narrow plant it has
affinities to the continental "maison a deux corps de batiments". The building
consists of a 3 bay house with side passage to the east and an internal entry passage
on the west side. A freestanding kitchen and buttery at the rear is connected to
the house by a gallery. The main house comprises a former front shop, central staircase
with attached spence and rear parlour. At 1st floor level were a fore-hall, counting
house and (dining) hall with attached closets over the east side passage. Possibly
built by the Kelland family; later the Eugene Inn and, in the C19, the Commercial
Inn. 3 storeys with attics. 4 bay facade (ground floor). Gabled front with renewed,
Welsh slate roof. Random Devonian limestone party walls and rear wall with dressed
quoins and moulded jetty corbels of granite. Timber framed front with 2 bracketed
jetties; carved bressumers and brackets. Cement rendering to gable and ground floor;
exposed timbering to 1st floor with plaster panels. Gable windows, flush framed
sashes with glazing bars; 10 light oriel window to 1st floor forehall with leaded
lights is an insertion of circa 1900 (carved date) in the opening of the original
C16/C17 window; modern 3 light mullioned windows to ground floor with leaded lights
and barred fanlights over. Modern architraved doorway with nail-studded panel door
with ornamental hinges. At side, 3 storeys. Timber-framed staircase bay with 4
light windows, all mostly renewed. At rear 6 light mullioned stone windows with
cavetto mouldings, hood moulds and leaded lights. Timber-framed 1st floor gallery
to kitchen block with open ground floor loggia. 2 storey masonry kitchen range
with 2 and 4 light windows similar to those in rear facade of main house. Lead
rainwater head inscribed "W.P 1823". Interior Original spiral staircase with round
timber newel rising full height of house; turned balusters and newels to landings.
Panelled partitions to chambers and staircase with ogee mouldings; similar mouldings
and carved 'urn type' stops to doorways on 1st and 2nd moor, Oriel window recess
of 1st floor fore-hall with ovolo mouldings. Original fireplaces in side walls
with flattened, arched heads, ogee, mouldings and 'urn type' stops similar to joinery;
1st floor fireplace with plaster back decorated with painted chequer work. Early
C17 chimneypiece in ground floor back chamber brought from No 49 Fore Street and
inserted circa 1962: similar chimneypiece in rear kitchen brought from 14 High Street
and inserted at the same time, No 70 was extensively renovated between 1958 and
1962 when the building was converted for use as a museum. (M Laithwaite). (Pantin,
WA 'Medieval English Town House Plans', Med Archaeol 6-7 (1962-3) 202-39).

Listing NGR: SX8030460410

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Totnes Museum at Wikipedia
• Totnes Museum official website
• Wikidata Q7828353

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

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)