Home > Devon > Throwleigh > Royal Oak Royal Oak
Date of photo: c1906	Picture source: Jon RIley
The Royal Oak was situated in a line of cottages beside the church and opposite Barton Wayside. It was claimed to be a house of ill repute by the Rector Samuel Archer of the Church and closed, sometime in the 1880-90's. This grade-II listed pub is now in residential use.
Source: Clive Schneidau
The house I live in was The Royal Oak. Built in the late 1500s it was originally named something else. But when Charles II reclaimed the throne in 1660 it was renamed The Royal Oak along with many other inns across the country. It was shut down as a public house around the turn of the 20th century. There were no licensing hours and drinking and merriment would go on all night. The pub was shut down after outgoing Saturday night revellers clashed with the incoming church congregation and a fairy fruity exchange of words took place. Some of the bell ringers were also the worse for wear. The reverend at the time was incensed and the pub lost its licence.
Jon Riley (April 2025)
Listed building details:
Cottage. Late C16 to early C17, enlarged in C18 or C19. Plastered granite stone rubble; granite stacks topped with C19 brick; thatch roof. PLAN: Three-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south. The Outer rooms are heated, the right one by a projecting gable end stack and the left one by a rear lateral stack. Unheated central room with cross passage between it and the right room. Maybe there was once a rear passage doorway. Although no absolute proof was noted it seems possible that the left room is an addition. Two storeys. EXTERIOR: Irregular 3-window front of C19 and C20 replacement casements with glazing bars. Front passage doorway is right of centre and contains a C19 plank door behind a C20 gabled porch on rustic posts. Roof is gable-ended to right and half-hipped to left. INTERIOR inspection was limited to the ground floor which showed a house mostly the result of apparently superficial C19 and C20 modernisations. The only exposed carpentry is a late C16 - early C17 crossbeam with broad soffit chamfers and step stops in the right room. The fireplace here is blocked by a C20 grate, as is the left room fireplace (at time of listing). An axial beam in the centre room is boxed in. Roof was not available for inspection but may well be original. An attractive and little-modernised cottage amongst a group of listed buildings in the middle of Throwleigh village.
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Other Photos
Date of photo: 2025	Picture source: Jon RIley