Description

BARNSTAPLE

SS5532 TAW VALE
684-1/4/229 (North East side)
31/12/73 Imperial Hotel
(Formerly Listed as:
TAW VALE PARADE
Imperial Hotel)

GV II

Hotel. Largely 1902 (Pevsner), incorporating a c1800 house at
the W end. Smooth plastered; natural slate roof with lead
rolls; stacks with red brick shafts with corbelled cornices.
c1800 house is symmetrical, 2 rooms wide. The hotel has been
built around this and to the E with a large entrance/stair
hall to E of the house.
3 storeys. Asymmetrical but regular 2:3:2:10-window range
(2:3:2-window to the c1800 house). Deep eaves on moulded
brackets; brick eaves course; moulded string at 2nd-floor cill
level. Old house is symmetrical with Doric porch with moulded
cornice with central roundel and 2-leaf small-pane glazed
door. Ground-floor bay windows have rounded corners and are
glazed with 4-pane horned sashes. The moulded string above was
the cornice of the house before an extra storey was added with
3 similar sashes to the 2nd storey.
The wing to the left has tall small-pane windows on the ground
floor and 6 over one-pane sashes on the first floor and 4-pane
sashes on the second floor.
To right of the c1800 house a one-bay projection has a tall
French roof with wrought-iron railings round the top. A
2-storey flat-roofed entrance block projects off this to the
front with a 2-bay arcade on the ground floor and a third arch
on the return with pilastered round-headed moulded arches with
keyblocks. One opening is a door with plain fanlight, the
other 2 are windows glazed with plate glass. The first floor
of the entrance block is glazed with ribbon windows and
crowned with decorative iron railings.
The remainder of the hotel, 6 bays, has a canted corner and
breaks forward to the right. Ground-floor windows are glazed
with C20 timber 2-pane sashes, including 2 canted bays.
First-floor balcony, probably 1902, on cast-iron brackets with
frontal to match that on the entrance block. First-floor
windows mostly French with high transoms, re-glazed with
plastic windows, have cornices, some on consoles. Second-floor
windows are 2 and 4-pane sashes.
INTERIOR: large open-well timber stair to entrance hall with
turned balusters. The c1800 house has been altered with
ground-floor partition removed and 2 c1900 chimneypieces.
HISTORICAL NOTE: a painting shows the c1800 house as 2-storey
with projecting front wings.
The building is an important feature of Taw Vale and the C19
riverside development close to the Long Bridge.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Cherry B: Devon: London:
1989-: 159).

Listing NGR: SS5597332884

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26665137

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Monuments
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)