Description

BARNSTAPLE

SS5533SE BOUTPORT STREET
684-1/7/45 (East side)
19/01/51 No.62
(Formerly Listed as:
BOUTPORT STREET
(East side)
No.62
National Westminster Bank)

GV I

Formerly known as: No.61A BOUTPORT STREET.
House, later hotel, now building society offices. 1620,
re-fronted in early C19. Rendered front. Hipped, slated roof,
red-brick chimney on right-hand side wall. L-shaped plan, 2
rooms wide at the front with 2 large rooms in rear wing to
right. Axial chimney between the 2 wing rooms.
4 storeys. 3-window range, the outer windows of 3 lights and
set in shallow bows. Ground storey divided into 3 bays, the
narrow central entrance-bay flanked by unfluted Doric columns
with matching pilaster at each end, these supporting an
entablature which breaks forward round the bow windows and
entrance. Raised band above each upper storey; moulded eaves
cornice. The windows, including those in the ground storey,
have barred sashes, all of them C20 replacements.
INTERIOR: has been considerably altered, but retain 3 fine
original ceilings, including one that is probably the best
piece of urban plasterwork of its period in Devon and has few
rivals even in the country houses. The ceilings were
originally in first-floor rooms, until the floors were removed
to convert the building into a bank in the 1930s.
The best ceiling is at the front end of the wing:
barrel-vaulted with broad enriched ribs, the panel filled with
birds, animal and biblical scenes. Open-work pendants
containing human figures, one inscribed `July 9th' and another
`1620'. Coat of arms on end wall belonging to the Company of
Merchants trading with Spain, presumably because one of the
merchants lived in the house. Original timber frame carrying
the ceiling survives.
Rear room in wing has another broad rib ceiling, this time
with more conventional detail in the panels. It is 3-sided,
built under the collars of the roof trusses with the principal
rafters showing. Principals decorated with large human
figures, these standing on brackets resembling hammer beams.
In the front wall of this room (at ground-floor level) is an
original stone fireplace with rectangular moulded surround.
Right-hand front room (now the office foyer) has a single rib
ceiling decorated with winged horses. This was treated as
original by Bruce Oliver in 1917, although it seems to contain
some much more recent work, possibly by GP Bankart.
HISTORICAL NOTE: before its conversion to a bank, the building
was used as the Golden Lion Hotel. According to Bruce Oliver,
who converted the building in the 1930s, there was no evidence
of original colour on the ceilings, except that the lions'
tongues were picked out in red. A fireplace from the house was
removed to Fardell Manor, Cornwood.
(Supplement to the Architectural Review, Sept 1898: 147;
Transactions of Devonshire Association: Oliver B: The Early
Seventeenth Century Plaster Ceilings of Barnstaple: 1917-:
190-199; Country Life, 5.10.1935: 362-363).

Listing NGR: SS5589633057

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17526829

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

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)