Description

DARTMOUTH

SX874510 DUKE STREET
673-1/8/107 (South side)
11/12/69 No.3
(Formerly Listed as:
DUKE STREET
(South side)
Nos.1 AND 3
Steam Packet Inn)

GV II

Merchant's house, more recently the Steam Packet Inn, now tea
rooms with offices and flats above. Dated 1639, built on land
leased to Edward Spurway, with various C19 and C20
modernisations. Mixed construction; thick local stone rubble
side walls with plastered timber-framed front and back walls;
original stone rubble stack with C19 brick chimneyshaft to
right party wall; slate roof.
PLAN: End onto the street with a one-room plan; no
ground-floor fireplace because this was always a shop. Curved
alcove to rear of left party wall indicates position of
original newel stair and suggests former side passage along
this side.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and attic; one-window range. The ends of
the stone side walls corbel out to carry the jettied upper
floors and both contain worn stone plaques at first-floor
level: the right one is thought to belong to this house and
has 1639 date with initials WB and ES. Ground floor has late
C19 timber shop front, 3 lights with overlights flanked by
recessed doorways, each containing a similar part-glazed door
under an overlight with glazing bars. Bottom edge of
first-floor bressummer carved with a kind of bead-and-reel -
very early for 1639. Canted bay to first floor with front
horned 4-pane sash and similar sashes to second floor and
attic with a narrower sash second-floor left. Gable above with
C19 open wavey bargeboards and timber apex finial and pendant.
INTERIOR: Mostly the result of C19 and C20 modernisation.
Ground floor has been cleared of any partitions and rear wall
knocked through to connect with No.1 Duke Street (qv) and
No.12 The Quay (qv). C17 carpentry and other features probably
survive behind the C19 and C20 plaster.
HISTORY: This is one of a group of merchants' houses built on
reclaimed land in a Town Corporation-backed scheme to reclaim
land for housing and expand the port facilities with the New
Quay. This began in 1585, and by the second phase, in the
1630s, this was the most fashionable part of the town and the
surviving C17 houses are amongst the best merchants' houses of
their period in Devon.
(Freeman, Ray: Dartmouth and its Neighbours: Phillimore:
1990-: P.76-83).

Listing NGR: SX8778351388

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26491973

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.

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