Totnes shop

[fjpdesigns]

Here's hoping for some help from you learned people.
I've been asked if I can help to identify or date the decorative heads on this shop front in Totnes. Some of you may know it anyway. The building is supposedly Elizabethan but has obviosly had an extra fascade added at a later(Georgian/Regency ?) date. It was origionally a merchant' house, then at some stage used as a theatre. It is now a shoe shop.( How the mighty are fallen.)
My guess is that the heads were added when it was a theatre and are simply theatrical masks or characters.

 

[Nemesis]

Building Name: 28
Parish: Totnes
District: South Hams
County: Devon
Postcode: TQ9 5RY
LBS Number: 427318
Grade: II*
Date Listed: 07 January 1952
Date of Last Amendment: 28 June 2007
Date Delisted:
National Grid Reference: SX8017660433

Listing Text:


1.
5180 HIGH STREET
(South Side)
No 28
SX 8060 SW 1/52 7.1.52.

II* GV

2.
Early C18, possibly built as a pair with No 26, by John Awatt. Formerly housed
the Old Theatre, now used as a store. 3 storeys and attic. 3 windows. Welsh slate
roof with gabled front. Moulded bargeboard. Plastered front with rusticated 1st
floor. Coved cornice enriched with swags. Architraved 2nd floor sash windows with
glazing bars and flanked by scroll decoration. Modern 1st floor casement windows
with rusks on keys. Modern shopfront. Interior with dogleg, late C18 staircase
with turned balusters, newels, and carved brackets. Mid C19 theatre entrance at
rear flanked by pilasters carrying broken pediment with centre-piece. foyer screen
to theatre with pilasters flanking 3 round-arched openings with archivolts, keys
and dentil cornice over. Theatre altered. (M. Laithwaite).


Listing NGR: SX8017460416

Well, that's not very helpful is it?

The Totnes Town Trail says:

Before you turn right up the hill, look across the street at the grotesque masks scowling down at you. These date from when the building once a theatre and are just some of the interesting features on the buildings along the street - so keep looking up!

http://www.southdevonaonb.org.uk/sitedetails.asp?PageId=32&SiteId=854

and has the information previously not known to me that Babbage came from Totnes. (It's also the place where the Brunel Atmospheric Railway Pumping Station was recently listed, after a spot of campiagning by SAVE with the help of Jeremy Clarkson).

 

[fjpdesigns]

Thanks Nemesis. I couldn't find it on Images of England: where is that info located?

 

[Nemesis]

It's Listed Buildings Online, it doesn't, for some odd reason, seem to be on IoE.

That's the only record I can find. Try contacting English Heritage though, which might have a longer record.

Also - Pevsner...

 

[Manders]

The heads are contemporary with the C18 facade.

I was involved in the reworking of the building which included renewing the shopfront and replacing the first floor windows to match the originals. I have a feeling that at that time we may have had Keystone to so some research. If so, the document will be in the study centre at the museum. Failing that, there may still be a copy with SHDC. I also have a feeling that there wasn't any evidence of a theatre at the property as the town theatre was located at the bottom of town on the plains (there was a ticket kiosk, but this was much later). There was also a rumour of a tunnel to windeatts opposite but no evidence of such at the site. The reason for the tunnel was said to be to connect the building to the cock fighting pit under windeatts (which is still there).

I've just donated some photgraphs of the town generally to the image bank, and I'm sure that there were photos of before and after of this building.

Regards,

Shane.