68, 70 AND 72, OCKFORD ROAD

A house, now divided into three dwellings, dating to the late 16th century with additions from the 17th or 18th century and alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is timber-framed. Number 72 has a thinner timber frame and some painted wattle and daub infill (on Number 68), with later brick infill in other areas. Portions of the building have been replaced with brick, and the front has been roughcast-plastered. The roof is covered with plain tiles. The building originally consisted of three bays with a smoke bay, and has been extended with a single-cell addition (Number 72). Number 72 has a boarded door under a bracketed hood and a 20th-century window to the left, with an 8-pane side-sliding sash window above, and a tile-hung, gabled dormer window rising above the eaves. Number 70 has a similar door to the right of a three-light window, and windows with 2, 4, and 6 lights to the first floor, all with 2-paned lights, the 4-light window featuring a central side-sliding sash. Number 68 has a four-panel door within an open, gabled timber porch, and an 8-pane, 2-light window to the right on each floor. The roof is half-hipped, with a right hip and gablet. A rebuilt end stack is visible on the right. At the rear, a late 20th-century brick addition to Numbers 68 and 70 is not of particular interest; however, the timber frame is visible to either side, showing wall posts with arched braces down to the mid-rail. The interiors of Numbers 68 and 70 retain a significant amount of timber framing, including original end and partition walls of large square panels (in Number 70), unjowled posts, stop-chamfered spine-beams, square-sectioned joists, some broad floorboards, and queen-post roof trusses with clasped purlins and square-sectioned rafters. The stair in Number 70 is likely an insertion and may have replaced what was originally a cross-passage.