On the site which is now the Rose Saltern on Bridgeland Street (Wetherspoons) the original buildings dated back to when the street was first laid out in 1691. This is one of the sites we’ll be featuring next Thursday 17 September as we celebrate a Heritage Open Day in Bridgeland Street. 

The original building was leased to Jeffrey Power, a merchant, in 1691. It also incorporated a small section of the 1690s property that is to the right-hand side of Wetherspoons. This was leased to Phillip Cornish, a mariner, in 1712. 

The house, court and garden served as Bideford Grammar School from around 1815 to 1869. Described then as one of the ‘new buildings’ it was originally purchased as the Headmaster’s house and could accommodate 30 boarders. The Headmaster at the time was the Revd. Francis Harriman Hutton, who moved teaching there from Allhalland Street and the school room was enlarged to accommodate the whole school.

Hutton resigned in 1826 and was succeeded by the Revd. Henry Alford of Roborough who served as Headmaster until 1849, though he remained living at another address in Bridgeland Street and is described in the 1851 Census as the chaplain of Bideford Workhouse. He was followed by the Revd. Hugh Fowler of Great Torrington, and the school grew in prestige. When Fowler left in 1854 to become Headmaster of Gloucester School, he took with him a number of boarders and the school then seems to have gone into decline. His successor, the Revd. Abraham Thompson (1854-1868), was rumoured to have a drink problem and was shunned by the Rector, Reverend Bazeley. The property fell into disrepair and was abandoned in 1869 as ‘insanitary and incommodious’.  The Grammar School then moved to the site now occupied by Kingsley School in Northdown Road. 

A lease on the dilapidated building was then acquired by The Public Rooms Company Ltd who renovated the property as a Music Hall. By 1904 it was noted that ‘the premises have been rebuilt within the last 20 years and are in thorough repair’. However, those grand old premises were later pulled down to build the Palace Cinema, which some readers may remember. That closed in 1962 and was replaced by Ford and Lock supermarket and more recently by a furnishing store. 

Wetherspoons opened The Rose Saltern in 2013, named after the heroine of Charles Kingsley’s famous historical novel Westward Ho! written in 1854.