Description

BIDEFORD

SS4526 HIGH STREET
842-1/5/101 (South side)
13/12/89 Nos.7 AND 8

GV II

Pair of houses with shops. Mid C19; early C20 shop front at
No.7. Solid rendered walls. Slate roof. Red-brick chimney at
right-hand end of ridge; another at rear of No 8.
Shops flanking cart-entrance to rear courtyard; this is built
up on all 4 sides, the rear range with a further
cart-entrance, apparently leading to a second courtyard.
3 storeys. Each building of 2-window range. No 7 has a good
Art Nouveau shop front with panelled flanking pilasters
carrying elaborate paired brackets with shaped blocks on top;
between the brackets is an entablature finished with a
patterned iron cresting.
Shop door recessed between 2 curved display windows, the
larger right-hand window with a sinuous curve. Windows have
chamfered black marble bases and are divided into large
rectangular panes by glazing-bars, the uprights with
lily-patterned tops. Glazed shop door with shaped solid panel
at the bottom; tall fanlight above.
The floor in front of the door is paved with coloured
patterned mosaic having large red flowers at 2 opposing
corners and, in the centre, the inscription GRIMES & CO.
Ceiling above covered with mirrors in shaped wooden frames.
Shop front at No 8 mainly late C20, but has early C20 shaped
wooden blocks at either end of the fascia.
Between the 2 shop fronts is the entrance to rear courtyard;
above it an entablature with cornice supported at right-hand
end by an enriched console.
Upper-storey windows have moulded architraves and bracketed
siils, the sills of the second-storey windows at No 8 now
covered by the shop front; sashes with horns and upright
glazing-bars forming margin-panes. wooden eaves cornice.
Passage and front courtyard have old cobbled surface, partly
repaired with concrete.
Rear range has window with 6-paned sashes. Edward Grimes, gold
and silversmith, watch and clockmaker, optician, appears to
have moved into No 7 at the end of 1908. INTERIOR not
inspected.
(Wilson's Bideford Almanack: 1888-: P.38; Wilson's Bideford
Almanack: 1908-: P.81; Wilson's Bideford Almanack: 1909-:
P.19, 34; Bideford and North Devon Weekly Gazette: 1908-:
P.4).

Listing NGR: SS4538726568

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26580956

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

• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover