The Corn Market is a commercial building in West Street in Tavistock, Devon, England. The structure, which is now used as a ladies' clothes shop, is a Grade II listed building.

History

The building was commissioned by the local land-owner, John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. The site he selected, on the corner of West Street and King Street, was occupied by the Green Dragon Inn. The new building was designed by Charles Fowler in the neoclassical style, built with

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone facings on the ground floor and with rubble masonry on the first floor, and was completed in 1835. The design involved a long main frontage of eight bays facing onto King Street. The ground floor was originally open, and the bays were separated by Doric order columns carved from granite supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

carved with the words "Corn Market, Erected by John, Duke of Bedford, K. G., 1835". The first floor was fenestrated by

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s with

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

s, and above, there was a hipped slate roof. The West Street frontage of four bays adopted a similar style. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century. The building was then re-purposed as Walford's Cinema Palace under the management of a Mr. C. Walford in 1912, and a wide proscenium arch was installed. The Russell family sold various properties in the town, including the guildhall, the

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

, the council chambers and various public amenities, including the corn market, to the urban district council for a price agreed by arbitration in order to meet death duty obligations in 1913. In the early 1920s, the facility was branded simply as "Cinema". After the Second World War, it came under the management of Archie Lewis Cinemas of

Dawlish Dawlish is an English seaside resort town and civil parish in Teignbridge on the south coast of Devon, from the county town of Exeter and from the larger resort of Torquay. Its 2011 population of 11,312 was estimated at 13,355 in 2019. It is t ...

but it closed in 1963. It went on to become a hardware store known as "Cook Stores" in the 1970s. After being refurbished by Wessex Heritage in the early 1990s, it become as a ladies' clothes shop operating under the FatFace brand.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1835 Tavistock Grade II listed buildings in Devon Tavistock

History

See also

References