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Picture courtesy: Darkstar

The North Country was situated at 128 Boutport Street. A grade-II listed pub.

Now reopened as The Bull & Bear

Jamie Sollis (May 2023)

Listed building details:

House, now public house. C17 with early C18 refurbishment and restoration of the late C20. Painted brick; slate roof, half-hipped at ends with pierced ridge tiles; left end stack with old brick shaft. Left end has pierced barge-boards. C17 town house plan which is a variation on the gallery and back block arrangement, with 2 galleries from front to rear across a central courtyard. Side passage to right. 3 storeys. Symmetrical 3-bay front. 2-leaf panelled external  door to right, chamfered inner door frame probably C20. 2 ground-floor 16-pane sashes; 3 taller 12-pane first-floor sashes with moulded architraves; 2 outer 2nd-floor 16-pane sashes with a blind recess in the centre. Interior: good survival of historic features. Part of the plank and muntin side-passage screen survives to the rear of the courtyard, with chamfered muntins with scroll stops. Right hand gallery (above side passage) supported on ovolo-moulded scroll-stopped beam. Large fireplace on left-hand wall to heat rear ground-floor room. Stair rises from within courtyard (which has been roofed over), rising against the rear wall of the front cell. First-floor front room retains fireplace (lintel replaced) on right-hand wall and C17 panelling. Good c1700 decorated plaster ceiling with central oval and quarter circles in the corners, each decorated with a scallop shell. C17 door-frames from front room to galleries. Evidence that the galleries were used contemporaneously with one another comes from the plank-and-muntin screen which forms the first-floor courtyard partition of the rear room; although this screen has been somewhat altered in the centre, it appears to be in its original position and has 2 original doorways from the 2 galleries. Rear first-floor room preserves good C17 fireplace with ovolo-moulded lintel and stones in the fireback laid in herringbone pattern. Roof not inspected but likely to be of interest. An important example of a C17 town house plan.

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