West Meon Village Shop, Riverside, and Old Post Office (Part)

Details

WEST MEON

1888/15/15 HIGH STREET 24-SEP-1987 WEST MEON West Meon village shop, Riverside, and Old Post Office (part)

II

A four-bay C18 house, with a C20 shop front added to the two east bays, and a C19 gabled wing on the east end. The building is of brick, tile and slate. The plan of the C18 house is based on an axial corridor from which rooms are accessed to front and rear.

EXTERIOR: The C18 house is white painted Flemish bond brick on a brick plinth with a tile half-hipped roof and central axial chimney stack with four pots. It has C18 sashes to the ground floor, C19 casements to the first floor above a first floor brick band. There is a central stuccoed porch with chamfered corners, a concave leaded roof and six-panelled door, the upper two panels being glazed. The shop front is glazed with a flat roof and corbelled eaves course. The C19 advanced gabled east wing in English bond brick has a slate roof with two ground floor and one first floor full length windows with brick arches. The rear of the building is cement rendered, apart from a central extension to the rear of the C18 house which is flint with brick dressings. All windows to the rear are modern casements. The projecting C20 gabled wing (known as the Old Post Office) which adjoins at the west end is not included in the listing. However, two bays on the western side of the C18 house are in the ownership of the Old Post Office, and therefore the Old Post Office (part) appears in the List address.

INTERIOR: The interior of the C18 house comprises a modern shop, which occupies the ground floor of the two eastern bays and the ground floor of the east wing, and modernised living accommodation. The shop is open plan, but an earlier shop front has been retained within it. There is a brick cellar beneath the shop with modern floor joists in its ceiling. Despite the fact that the house is now divided into two dwellings, the original plan of the house can still be seen in the two west ground floor bays and throughout the first floor, where a long axial corridor at the rear gives access to rooms opening off it. Only a few tie beams and purlins of the C18 house are visible as evidence of original construction. The remainder of the roof has limited accessibility, but it appears from outside inspection to have remained intact. There are few interior fixtures and fittings of note, but tiling in the entrance hall within the porch, the staircase behind the porch and the panelling on the staircase belong to C19 changes. The first floor room in the east wing shows the line of the purlins of this C19 addition.

HISTORY: The four-bay house known as 'Riverside' is believed to date to the C18. It appears on the map of 1884 and 1896 but set further back from the road, and indeed there is, within the existing shop, an earlier shop front which would appear to correspond to the earlier position of the front of the building.

West Meon was an agricultural community, and in 1801 had a population of 536 which constituted a fair sized village for the period, and in 1851 it peaked to 901 after which the population declined. It would seem probable that the village shop dated from this period.

The footprint of the building has changed considerably since its depiction on the 1884 Ordnance Survey map. On this map the C18 house is shown with a small extension to the front which is in the position of the later shop, and may be the first shop on the site. This has been elongated by the 1896 edition map and the wing had been added to the east end of the house as well as some minor changes to the rear of the house. There were some changes to the west end of the building by the 1909 edition, but the post office gable end is not shown yet shown at this time; and must be assumed to have been built after this date.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The building group, the West Meon village shop, Riverside, and the Old Post Office (part) is designated for the following principal reasons: * The C18 house is of special architectural and historic interest because of its early date, fabric and plan survival, and the evidence of the evolution of the house through the C19 can be read. * The C19 eastern addition to the house retains its original fabric and continues the history of the evolution of the house. * West Meon village shop is an integral part of the evolution of the C18 house and shares fabric in common with the house.

Listing NGR: SP6421824034

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

146658

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.