Description

BIDEFORD

SS4526 BRIDGE STREET 842-1/6/20 (North side) 19/03/73 Bridge Buildings (Formerly Listed as: BRIDGE STREET (North side) Bridge Hall. The Sundial)

GV II

Council offices. 1882 by WR Bideford. Carving by H Hems of Exeter. Squared local stone rubble (rough-faced in ground storey with a marked batter below sill-level); details in Ham stone. 4 tall red brick chimneys with tops designed as entablatures, the 3 on the sides fronting Bridge Street and The Quay with pilasters strips on the sides. Plan approximately square with entrance-hall and staircase in centre of Bridge Street side. Renaissance style. 3 lofty storeys on side facing The Quay, 4 storeys to Bridge Street, 3 storeys to Allhalland Street. Main fronts to Bridge Street and The Quay of 6-window range, the 2 middle windows set in slight projections. Front to The Quay has segmental-headed ground-storey windows with moulded architraves and scroll-keystones. Continued moulded sills; entablature above window-heads. Second-storey windows flat-headed with rounded top corners, moulded surrounds and hood-moulds with carved terminals. Below them, panels of carved foliage and cartouches or, in the centre projection, half-balusters. Outer window in third storey have flat heads and moulded surrounds, being finished above eaves-level with shaped pediments. Round-arched windows in centre with moulded architraves and keystones, these flanked and separated by pilasters with carved capitals supporting an entablature and segmental pediment; the latter is a replacement of the original ogee-shaped gable with carved front and small segmental pediment. Beneath the window a pair of stringcourses forming an entablature. Bridge Street front is similar but with less regularity, since both the centre projection and the left side have 4 tiers of windows compared with 3 on the right. The centre projection is finished with a pedestal flanked by scroll-buttresses and carved with a cartouche and swags. An old photograph shows the pedestal, or its predecessor, surmounted by a segmental pediment. The shaped pediments which formerly topped the outer third-storey window have been removed. Between the second-storey windows of the centre projection is a painted sundial, described in the 1973 list as 'from earlier building'; if so, it has been very thoroughly restored. Front to Allhalland Street is plain, though with entablatures, stringcourses and continued sills carried round. INTERIOR: open-well stone staircase with iron balustrade, scrolled at the foot. Plain square-section balusters with S-scrolls fitted in between their tops. On the walls of the compartment, 4 stone coats-of-arms, one inscribed LEWIS BUCK ESQUR. MAYOR 1758. Rooms not inspected. Perkin's Almanack of 1883 (p16) describes this as Bridge Hall. 'Here are held the School of Science and Art classes; the Free Library; North Devon Permanent and Terminable Building Society, the Bridge Feoffee Meetings, etc. etc.' The builder was R T Hookway of Bideford. Plaque in entrance-hall says building 'was rebuilt at the cost of the Bridge Estate... on the site of a Bridge Hall rebuilt AD 1758 and of a Free School rebuilt AD 1657 and repaired AD 1680 and 1780 and of a Grammar School founded AD 1689'. (Granville R: History of Bideford: 1883-: P.103-5; Goaman A: Old Bideford and District: 1978-: 42, 49).

Listing NGR: SS4543726490

External Links

• Wikidata Q26501884

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Recommended Books

• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)