[105721] Barnstaple : Penrose Almshouses

Penrose Almshouses, Litchdon Street, Barnstaple, Devon, 1624-27.

Built in memory of John Penrose (1575-1624), a merchant and Mayor of Barnstaple.

Grade I listed.

 

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 in 1620, built these almshouses.

 

The structure consists of a cobbled courtyard around which are twenty almshouses, for forty poor residents, with chapel and board room and vegetable gardens 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.

 

The pump in the courtyard is Grade II listed. 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.

Done