File:BevilGrenvilleOvermantleBideford.JPG

English: Plaster relief sculpted overmantle c.1643, 1st Floor Room (in 2012 a massage therapists), no 8A The Quay, Bideford, Devon. Popularly supposed to be of Sir Bevil Grenville (1596-1643) of Bideford, Devon and Stowe, Kilkhampton, Cornwall. On either side of the figure within strapwork surrounds are escutcheons bearing the Grenville arms of Three clarions. (William Henry Rogers, ‘Notes on Bideford’, 1935, page 77,:

“In the Board Room of the Gas Company’s office is a plaster mantelpiece and frieze. In the centre is a full-length figure of Sir Bevil GRENVILLE with the GRENVILLE arms on either side. This mantelpiece was discovered when the house, then the Three Tuns Tavern was dismantled and re-edified by the Gas Company. The house was Sir Bevil’s Town House, and was known as ‘New Place’ to distinguish it from ‘Old Place’, the original manor house at the west end of the Bridge.”)

Strapwork decorative plasterwork in this form was popular during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and became unfashionable after the early 17th century.

It has more recently (c.2012) been dated to post 1660, and may therefore have come from the demolished Stowe House, Kilkhampton, Cornwall built by Sir Bevil's son Sir John Grenville, 1st Earl of Bath (1628-1701), several decorative features from which ended up in South Molton Mayor's Parlour and elsewhere: "Examined by Peter Hood (a leading authority on the English Civil War, historical consultant to Bideford 500 Heritage Group, and mastermind behind Torrington 1646...who stated that the coat which the man on the overmantle is wearing is called a ‘Dutchcoat’. They originated from the Netherlands before the Civil War but were originally much shorter, almost like a waistcoat. It was only after the Restoration that a new design emerged of a much longer three-quarter length. This is known as the ‘Jacobean Dutchcoat’, and is what we see the figure wearing in this overmantle. The shoes depicted here, are also of a fashion from a period later than 1660".([1]