Penrose's Almshouses
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Penrose's Almshouses are 17th-century
almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...
s in Litchdon Street,
Barnstaple Barnstaple ( or ) is a river-port town and civil parish in the North Devon district of Devon, England. The town lies at the River Taw's lowest crossing point before the Bristol Channel. From the 14th century, it was licensed to export wool from ...
, in
Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...
, England, built in memory of John Penrose (1575–1624), a merchant and
Mayor of Barnstaple The Mayor of Barnstaple together with the Corporation long governed the historic Borough of Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The seat of government was the Barnstaple Guildhall. The mayor served a term of one year. He was elected annually on t ...
. They have been a
Grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
listed building since 1951.


History

Between 1624 and 1627 Richard Beaple (1564-1643) and the four other co-executors of the will of his son-in-law John Penrose,
Mayor of Barnstaple The Mayor of Barnstaple together with the Corporation long governed the historic Borough of Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The seat of government was the Barnstaple Guildhall. The mayor served a term of one year. He was elected annually on t ...
in 1620, built the large structure in Litchdon Street, Barnstaple, known today as Penrose's Almshouses. It consists of a cobbled courtyard around which are twenty almshouses, for forty poor residents, with chapel and board room and vegetable gardens behind. A small coloured relief-sculpted depiction of these almshouses with a group of four poor inmates (with a woman, perhaps a wife, behind), within a roundel survives on the right side of Richard Beaple's monument in St Peter's Church, to match one on the left side depicting a merchant pointing to a treasure chest with three sailing ships on the sea behind. These almshouses were originally 20 dwellings, each one housing two people of the same sex. Above the doorway a plaque records "this howse was founded by Mr John Penrose, marchant, sometime maior of this towne. Ano Do 1627". John Penrose (1575–1624) was a dealer in woollen goods and was
Mayor of Barnstaple The Mayor of Barnstaple together with the Corporation long governed the historic Borough of Barnstaple, in North Devon, England. The seat of government was the Barnstaple Guildhall. The mayor served a term of one year. He was elected annually on t ...
in 1620. During the
English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
Barnstaple changed hands four times, and signs of the skirmishes can still be seen at Penrose's Almshouses, where bullet holes can be found in the door to the far left of the entrance gate. The pump in the courtyard has been
Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
listed since 1999. Probably dating to the late 17th or early 18th-century, it consists of a simple wooden casing shaped like a box, with a lead roof and an iron spout and handle. The 17th-century garden walls to the
allotment Allotment may refer to: * Allotment (Dawes Act), an area of land held by the US Government for the benefit of an individual Native American, under the Dawes Act of 1887 * Allotment (finance), a method by which a company allocates over-subscribed ...
s at the rear of the almshouses have also been Grade II listed since 1999.Garden Walls to the Allotments at the Rear of Penrose Almshouses
-
Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...
Listed Building database


Design

Founded in 1627, the almshouses have an ambitious symmetrical front with projecting centre and corners. The receding parts have one-storeyed
colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
s of roughly hewn circular granite pillars, the front of which are in line with the projecting parts. The latter are
gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
d. The doorway is four-centred, the side parts with large four-light "posthumously Perpendicular" windows. There is a spacious courtyard behind with four ranges of almshouses arranged facing onto a large courtyard, with a passageway through from the street and another at the rear, leading to allotments.
Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...
, ''The Buildings of England: North Devon'',
Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...
(1952) pg 48
The chapel has a fine interior with a three-light east window and a shallow-coved plaster ceiling with the remains of 17th-century decorated plasterwork with a vine motif and a central pendant for a chandelier. The fittings include 17th-century bookrests and benches with some 19th-century panelling and a 19th-century
lectern A lectern is a standing reading desk with a slanted top, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon. A lectern is usually attached to a stand or affixed to some other form of ...
. The boardroom at the opposite side of the building has a 19th-century panelled dado with fitted drawers and an altered fireplace. The interiors of the dwellings have been modernised, although it is possible some original features may survive beneath this work.


References


External links


Penrose's Almshouses - Barnstaple History websitePenrose's Almshouses - Barnstaple Almshouses website
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British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Penrose's Almshouse Buildings and structures in Barnstaple Almshouses in Devon Grade I listed almshouses