Summary
Detached house with attached former coach house, built around 1840 with a later C19 extension. Now three separate dwellings.
Reasons for Designation
1, 1a and 1b Church Street, Cullompton are listed for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a good example of a mid-C19 townhouse which retains a high proportion of its historic fabric;
* the handsome front elevation has good detailing, including a central doorcase and unhorned sash windows;
* internal features including joinery and plaster cornices are understood to survive internally.
Historic interest:
* potentially as part of the rebuilding of Cullompton after a great fire in 1839.
History
A building is shown in this location on the 1839 Tithe map, although the current building is thought to be an 1840s rebuild and it may replace an earlier structure lost in a devasting fire in Cullompton in 1839. It is shown on the 1887 Ordnance Survey (OS) map as a large building fronting the north side of Church Street and extending quite considerably to the rear.
The building is understood to have been a doctor’s surgery for many years, and locally has been known as ‘Dr Shove’s house’, who was practising in the 1940s. A games room was inserted into the large rear extension by a Dr John Tallack in the later C20. The house is also known as St Patrick’s, and a later C19 extension is occupied as two additional dwellings.
Details
Detached house with attached former coach house, built around 1840 with a later C19 extension. Now three separate dwellings.
MATERIALS: mostly constructed from volcanic trap stone (basalt), rendered, with stone dressings; the west extension is red brick, and the former coach house is rendered stone. There may also be remnants of cob construction. There are brick stacks with square-section terracotta pots to the main house; pitched slate roofs throughout.
PLAN: L-shaped plan with a central entrance; to the right of the principal front is the former coach house and to the left (west) a later C19 extension which extends to the rear.
EXTERIOR: two storeys with attics and a symmetrical front of three bays, with a further two-storey bay to the left and the single-storey former coach house to the right. The roof has deeply-overhanging eaves with shaped brackets. On the ground floor of the principal front (south), there is a central panelled door with a semi-circular fanlight above, set back within a doorcase with panelled reveals, pilasters and a pediment. To either side of the doorway are horned, two-pane sash windows with moulded architraves, heavy pediments, and cills on brackets. The three first-floor windows have eared and shouldered moulded architraves and bracketed cills. The windows to this floor are unhorned sashes, with eight panes per sash to the outer windows, and six to the centre window, with some crown glass retained. There are two later C19 gabled dormers to the roof, and the principal front is framed by pilaster quoins.
To the left-hand side there is a later C19 brick extension, plastered to the front, with one horned sash window to the ground floor. On its left-hand return there are two C19 oriel windows, and then a rear wing with, on its west side, two-light windows to the ground floor and three four-light C19 casement windows to the first floor; the latter have diamond panes at the top which are repeated on the east side ground floor of the wing with a further three four-light C19 casement windows above. The rear elevation of the main house has a sixteen-pane hornless sash window to the first floor, and to the stairwell a large window with six panes to the top sash and nine below. There is a later C19 canted bay window to the left-hand side of the rear elevation, with six panes to the central sash window and three panes to the flanking windows.
The former coach house, attached to the east side of the main house, is single-storey with timber double-doors, decorative timber barge boards and a roundel window on its east elevation. On the front elevation is a panelled timber door with a diamond-paned overlight. There is a small single-storey extension with a monopitch roof in the rear angle between the house and coach house.
INTERIOR: understood to retain tiled floors, bracketed fire-surrounds, and joinery including panelled internal shutters and doors, and a dog-leg staircase with a curved handrail and bobbin balusters. The first-floor master bedroom at the rear has a decorative plaster cornice. Some joinery has been reproduced from surviving remnants and other reclaimed decorative features were added in the C21. The current games room to the rear has a sprung floor.
The building was formerly listed as CULLOMPTON CHURCH STREET, Cullompton ST 00 NW 10/87 No. 1 (St Patricks)
