PENROSE ALMHOUSES

PENROSE ALMHOUSES, LITCHDON STREET

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Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1385215
Date first listed:: 19-Jan-1951
List Entry Name:: PENROSE ALMHOUSES
Statutory Address:: PENROSE ALMHOUSES, LITCHDON STREET

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Date:: 2004-06-20
Reference:: IOE01/12626/14
Rights:: © Dr Barbara Hilton. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: I
List Entry Number:: 1385215
Date first listed:: 19-Jan-1951
List Entry Name:: PENROSE ALMHOUSES
Statutory Address 1:: PENROSE ALMHOUSES, LITCHDON STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: PENROSE ALMHOUSES, LITCHDON STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Devon
District:: North Devon (District Authority)
Parish:: Barnstaple
National Grid Reference:: SS5604632855

Details

BARNSTAPLE

SS5632 LITCHDON STREET 684-1/5/199 (North East side) 19/01/51 Penrose Almshouses

GV I

Almshouses, originally 20 dwellings, each for 2 inmates of the same sex. Completed 1627, 3 years after the death of the founder, John Penrose. Later repair and refurbishment includes C20 replanning with partial conversion into flats and some features copying the original. Local ashlar masonry for external walls, internal partitions of brick; granite colonnade; natural slate roofs; brick stacks with old handmade brick shafts with considerable repair in modern brick with corbelled cornices (one original stack retains clustered shafts with a corbelled cornice of moulded bricks; lead gutter on colonnade is brattished and decorated with Tudor roses and oak leaves. PLAN: 4 ranges of almshouses arranged facing onto a large courtyard, with a passageway through from the street and another at the rear, leading to allotments. EXTERIOR: the street frontage has a 2-storey porch in the centre, with open returns, flanked by lean-to roofs supported on 9-bay colonnades on low walls and, to left and right, projecting gabled wings containing a single storey boardroom to the left and a chapel to the right. The parallel range at the rear also has short projecting rear wings; former laundry outside courtyard in rear right corner. Almshouses single-storey and attic with gabled half dormers and ovolo-moulded oak mullioned windows and 4-centred doorways with oak door frames, the latter with scroll stops. Windows glazed with diamond-leaded panes; plank and cover strip doors. Continuous slate pentice at first-floor level. Each range has a regular 4-window elevation facing the courtyard, the dormers with coped gables and purple stone relieving arches. 4 doors to each elevation, the 2 ranges parallel to the road with additional wider passageways in the centre with oak frames, the stops on the front-passage front frame carved with the initials of John Penrose. The Litchdon Street elevation has the 2-storey porch in the centre with a coped gable and an ovolo-moulded arched granite doorway inscribed 'John Penrose' and a C17-style timber gate. Above the doorway a plaque records 'this howse was founded by Mr John Penrose, marchant, sometime maior of this towne. Ano Do 1627'. 4-light mullioned window above with relieving arch and sundial in the gable. Tapering granite columns to left and right. Passageway from Litchdon Street is lit by a probably C18 sexagonal lamp, suspended from the pentice by an iron knee bracket. The gable ends of the left and right wings have 4-light Gothic stone windows with a king mullion and Y-tracery. Chapel gable to the right has a bellcote. Gabled attic half dormers have ovolo-moulded timber mullioned windows. Under the colonnade there are 2 doorways and 4 (2 to each side of the porch) C20 4-light mullioned windows matching the originals. Floor paved with probably C19 tiles and C19 or early C20 timber seat in C17 style attached to wall. Oak door frames and doors lead into the chapel and boardroom, with a wicket door into the chapel. Flat-roofed C20 service extensions to rear of the almshouse ranges on all but the street side, although the rear elevation backing onto the allotment has original mullioned windows and one half dormer partly rebuilt in brick. INTERIOR: one almshouse inspected; thoroughly modernised, although features of interest may survive behind modern plaster. The chapel has a fine interior with a 3-light east window and shallow, coved plaster ceiling with the remains of a C17 scheme of decorated plasterwork with vine motif and a central pendant for a chandelier. Fittings include C17 bookrests and benches with some C19 panelling and a C19 lectern. The boardroom has a C19 panelled dado with fitted drawers and a somewhat altered fireplace. HISTORICAL NOTE: according to a board fixed under the colonnade John Penrose, 1575-1624, buried in Fremington, was a dealer in slight woollen goods and mayor of Barnstaple. The boardroom contains a portrait of John Penrose, aged 26, signed Cornelius Jannsen and dated 1601, a portrait of Gilbert Paige (Paige's Almshouses, Church Lane, Barnstaple (qv)) c1650 and some interesting photographs of c1910 showing the Penrose Almshouses with residents in uniform including an interior showing the double range which was used at that date in the shared units. Also 1944 drawings by Allen T Hussell, 32 High Street, Ilfracombe, showing the almshouses before addition of the rear blocks, with privy blocks shown behind the ranges. This is a remarkably attractive and ambitious early C17 complex, incorporating some interesting Gothic Survival windows to chapel and boardroom and is the finest of a notable group of almshouses in Barnstaple. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Cherry B: Devon: London: 1989-: 159; Hussell A: Architect's Drawings: 1944-).

Listing NGR: SS5603732863

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 485677
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Hussell, A , Architect's Drawings, (1944)
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Devon, (1989), 159

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.