This is the second part of Fore Street in the village of Beer. It's a village with the most amazing variety of architectural styles, many of which are late 19th and early 20th century Arts & Crafts buildings, along with the much older vernacular cottages and 19th century parish church.
Following from Part One - which can be seen here - the next one along on the west side is the Dolphin Hotel.
The white building, seen below, is a wing of the Dolphin. What's interesting is the red telephone box bottom centre against the adjoining wall of the two buildings. Unfortunately I didn't get a clear photo of it, but it's a King George IV designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in 1935, and is listed as Grade I.
The Dolphin itself is also a Listed Building, at Grade II, and is built in the same style as several other buildings, including Manor Cottages and the Town Hall, both in Seaton. I suspect that some or all of these may have been designed by David Carr, or at least influenced by his work. Many Beer buildings belonged to the Clinton Devon Estates that David worked for.
Flint rubble walls with painted quoins and window surrounds, the main part was built mid 19th century. The white wing was much earlier in the 17th century, later remodelled during the early 19th.
The next one along is a tiny cottage, called Haslemere, sandwiched between The Dolphin and the following adjoining building, below.
It's in a similar style with the alternate limestone brickwork around the door and windows, echoing the quoins of the buildings each side, along with the quirkiness of windows at different heights. As they are all of similar design I suspect they were built at the same time, either building on existing cottages or from scratch on an empty or demolished site.
I love this attractive wrought iron fence with its floral finials painted white, and which looks especially attractive with a background of bright tulips and other plants.
This one to the left is Jimmy Greens Clothing Store, an accessory outlet of the Chandlery business which supplies ropes and other accroutements for boats and yachts.
This has got to be one of the loveliest buildings I've ever seen, with its quirky, higgledy piggledy levels of roofs and windows and with such fabulous features as the ground floor shop windows. The window and door shapes within the pointed frontage gives it a somewhat organic feel, as if about to enter a limestone cave.
That limestone frontage runs across the whole front, uniting the split roofs and ups and downs of the various door and window heights.
I wish now that I'd taken more photos of this, but I was so determined to get as many buildings as possible before the next bus home that I was a bit slap dash. If I take more on a future visit I'll add them to its own article.
And here are some details of the windows, below, with their fabulous leaded panels at the sides and headers.
After this there's a little lane between the buildings, followed by a pub called The Barrel of Beer. I don't have any photos of that one but the next one after it is the lovely little Old Lace Shop cottage.
A charming 17th century cottage, The Old Lace Shop isn't a listed building but it does have historical interest as well as this lovely frontage. Beer was one of the East Devon towns where the main occupation for women was lacemaking. It was in Beer that the lace for Queen Victoria's wedding dress was made and this shop may have been the outlet for their wares. The lace was sent to Honiton for dispatching due to the town being on the turnpike road to London, which is why it's sometimes referred to as Honiton Lace, even though it also came from Beer and Seaton plus other towns and villages along the coast.
It's so lovely and simple and the black and white decor makes it striking, with its plain plank door, attractive windows and sign above the door, which I think is probably a modern addition.
And below, a close up photo of the pretty stained glass pane above the front door.
Next along are a pair of cottages between the Old lace Shop and Beach Cottage.
I don't have a name for these and, like many of the others, it isn't on the Listed Buildings register. Again, there is the distinctive style that's common throughout many of these adjoined buildings.
Varied windows also adorn these two cottages, with Tudor style mullioned windows on each ground floor (seen above) and pointed and rectangular shaped gables above windows, seen below. There are also hanging tiles above the right one, which was quite popular with this style at the beginning of the 2oth century and which is lovely to see.
The adjoining building is Beach Cottage, which is part of the same elevation as Beach Court and continues the same style of flint rubble with limestone quoins and surrounds, along with the fabulous gables.
The same details of pointed and rectangular gables are also on this and Beach Court, but the door is within a recessed porch with glazed tiles partway up the walls.
And finally we come to Beach Court. I have an extended article with many more photos of it, which can also be seen here.
Built in 1903, it was originally called the Beach House Hotel. Now residential, it was split into separate flats and renamed Beach Court. Some of the ground floor flats can be seen at the side, below.
And finally, looking along to the opposite side of Fore Street, which we'll be starting in Part Three.
The very last one at the end, and partially around the corner, is another pub called The Anchor, which I don't have any photos for yet. As the rest are on the opposite side I'm going to leave it here. A little shorter than Part One, but I'll add more to it as and when I can take photos of the Anchor and the Barrel of Beer.
Next up is another article in the Odds & Ends series that I've been working on - if I can find another one or two items to go with those I already have, which I might have in my stack of older photos. Then there are several others that I've made a start on, so the jury's out which one of those gets finished first!
Meanwhile, the weather has been getting somewhat better with more sun and less rain, although it's still very cold. I'm leaving it for a while yet, but will hopefully start getting out a bit farther afield soon.
Cheers everyone! :)
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