Queen Anne's Walk is one of the most handsome small buildings in Devon — a Grade I listed arcade completed in 1713 that served as the town's mercantile exchange. Merchants would gather under its colonnaded facade to conduct business and, in the days before electronic communication, to receive news from ships arriving in the port. The building faces the river quay and its proportions are confident without being showy.
The centrepiece of the facade is a statue of Queen Anne in coronation robes, the only major public statue of the queen in England outside London. Above her is the so-called Tome Stone, a large flat stone on which merchants would slap their money to seal a deal — the origin, so the story goes, of the phrase "on the nail." The arcade is now used mainly as a venue for community events. The exterior can be seen at all times; it is one of Barnstaple's most photographed landmarks.