Listing Text

BARNSTAPLE

SS5533 BOUTPORT STREET
684-1/6/72 (West side)
31/12/73 No.128
North Country Inn

GV II*

House, now public house. C17 with early C18 refurbishment and
restoration of the late C20. Painted brick; slate roof,
half-hipped at ends with pierced ridge tiles; left end stack
with old brick shaft. Left end has pierced barge-boards.
C17 town house plan which is a variation on the gallery and
back block arrangement, with 2 galleries from front to rear
across a central courtyard. Side passage to right.
3 storeys. Symmetrical 3-bay front. 2-leaf panelled external
door to right, chamfered inner door frame probably C20. 2
ground-floor 16-pane sashes; 3 taller 12-pane first-floor
sashes with moulded architraves; 2 outer 2nd-floor 16-pane
sashes with a blind recess in the centre.
INTERIOR: good survival of historic features. Part of the
plank and muntin side-passage screen survives to the rear of
the courtyard, with chamfered muntins with scroll stops. Right
hand gallery (above side passage) supported on ovolo-moulded
scroll-stopped beam. Large fireplace on left-hand wall to heat
rear ground-floor room. Stair rises from within courtyard
(which has been roofed over), rising against the rear wall of
the front cell. First-floor front room retains fireplace
(lintel replaced) on right-hand wall and C17 panelling. Good
c1700 decorated plaster ceiling with central oval and quarter
circles in the corners, each decorated with a scallop shell.
C17 door-frames from front room to galleries.
Evidence that the galleries were used contemporaneously with
one another comes from the plank-and-muntin screen which forms
the first-floor courtyard partition of the rear room; although
this screen has been somewhat altered in the centre, it
appears to be in its original position and has 2 original
doorways from the 2 galleries. Rear first-floor room preserves
good C17 fireplace with ovolo-moulded lintel and stones in the
fireback laid in herringbone pattern. Roof not inspected but
likely to be of interest.
An important example of a C17 town house plan.

Listing NGR: SS5572033508