Barakel and Riddaway's Stores

Details

SS 70 SW
2/19

BOW
BOW (north side)
Barakel and Riddaway's Stores

GV
II*

House and shop, formerly an inn. Early C16 with later C16 and C17 improvements.
Plastered cob on rubble footings, slate-hung end wall; cob and stone rubble stacks
topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof.
Much-altered 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south. In fact the left
(western) end room is a probably C17 addition, the centre room the former service
end room and right (eastern) end room was former hall. Hall has axial stack
backing onto passage and central room has axial stack in former end wall. Riddaways
Stores occupies only the ground floor left end room with a C20 extension to rear.
The rest is Barakel. 2 storeys.
Irregular 4-window front includes a variety of windows. The main doorway,
containing late C19 double 4-panel door with large blocked overlight is set right of
centre. It is flanked by a 20-pane sash to right and a 16-pane sash to left; the
latter in a partly-blocked larger embrasure. At left end is C20 glazed shop window
bay including a door and under monopitch corrugated iron roof. First floor- has four
2-light casements, the thatch eaves lifting slightly over right 3. Roof is half-
hipped to left (west). Left end wall shows the wall founded on natural rock plinth.
It is slate hung, the slates nailed directly into the cob and has a single C19
casement with glazing bars on each floor.
Good interior of a house with a long and complex structural history. The oldest
part is the early C16 roof over the right (eastern) end, the former hall. It
includes 1 jointed cruck truss, side-pegged with slip tenon, and arch-braced with an
unusually steeply cambered collar. The roofspace is inaccessible but can be seen
from adjoining Kings Arms Inn (q.v.) to be smoke-blackened indicating that the hall
was originally open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. Another side-
pegged jointed cruck over the central room, the former service room, has a straight
collar and is clean. It is probably mid or late C16. Hall floored about same time
with 4-panel intersecting beam ceiling with chamfered edges. From hall to passage
survives half a C16 oak plank-and-muntin screen, the muntins chamfered with worn
probably roll stops. In late C17 a large cob fireplace was built backing onto
passage. Its large oak lintel is plainly finished resting on oak pads on top of oak
posts as jambs. The section of C16 screen removed to build the fireplace is reused
in a first floor partition. In the former service room the fireplace is blocked and
no beams are exposed. The left end room shows no exposed beams and above only the
base of plain principals show. This room was probably added in C18. The thin cob
party wall between Barakel and the Kings Arms (q.v.) is the upper end of the hall
and probably C16 or C17.
The building stands uphill on Bow's central crossroads and the western slate-hung
end projects into the main street overlooking the wider section of street, the
former market place. The roads have apparently worn down exposing the natural stone
and enhancing the height of the building. It has immense townscape value.
The building is known to have been an inn in the C17, one visited by Charles II in
1643.

Listing NGR: SS7222401736

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

96532

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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