Queen Anne's Walk

Queen Anne's Walk (formerly The Mercantile Exchange) is a grade I listed building in the town of Barnstaple, North Devon, completed in 1713 as a meeting place for the town's merchants. It is believed to have been designed by the architect William Talman, on the basis of its similarity to his work at the Hall in Drayton, Northamptonshire. It was promoted and financed by the thirteen members of the Corporation of Barnstaple whose armorials are sculpted on and above the parapet, and the work was overseen by Robert Incledon (1676-1758), Mayor of Barnstaple in 1712-13. It has been owned for many decades by North Devon District Council, which currently (2014) leases it to Barnstaple Town Council, which in turn uses it as the "Barnstaple Heritage Centre" a tourist information centre.

The building is situated at the bottom of Cross Street on the bank of the River Taw, and looked onto Barnstaple Quay, ("New Quay" after the 1870s), (now filled in) at which most of the sea-trade of the formerly important port of Barnstaple would arrive and depart. Here cargoes shipped from around the world, including notably tobacco from the North American colonies, would arrive and be sold to awaiting Barnstaple merchants, who were accustomed to seal deals by touching the 17th century so-called Tome Stone, a low stone circular bargaining table, with inscriptions around the rim of the names of three leading merchants, including Delbridge. In 1909 the Tome stone was moved to beneath the colonnade.

It consists of a low single-storey building fronted by a white Beer stone colonnade of ten bays, five to the left of the central bay supporting a statue of Queen Anne and four to the right. Above the columns and wrapping around the east side by one bay, is a parapet decorated with relief sculpted garlanded heraldic escutcheons, one per bay, showing the arms of eleven leading aristocratic, gentry and mercantile families of North Devon, with the arms of the Borough of Barnstaple forming a twelfth.

It was completed in 1713 under the supervision of Robert Incledon (1676-1758), who in 1746 built Pilton House adjoining Barnstaple, a lawyer of New Inn, London, a Clerk of the Peace for Devon, Deputy Recorder of Barnstaple and twice Mayor of Barnstaple, in 1712 and 1721. In 1713 as mayor he supervised the building of the Mercantile Exchange as is recorded on the east parapet of the building by a contemporary brass plaque inscribed in Latin as follows:

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