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

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26501884

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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