The Masons Arms

The Masons Arms is a coaching inn, now operating as a public house, located in Camelford Market Place. The building dates from the late 16th or early 17th century, with substantial extensions added during the 18th century and late 18th or early 19th century.

The structure is built of stone rubble, rendered and painted, with a slate roof featuring gable ends. The main range on the right is covered with a bitumen-coated rag slate roof, as is the lower central range. The carriage house on the left has a rag slate roof. The chimneys are varied: a brick axial stack stands between the carriage house and central range, with stone rubble rear lateral stacks to the central range. The higher range on the right originally had a projecting stone rubble axial stack at the gable end, and a rear lateral stone rubble stack serves the rear of the right-hand room, though this includes a circa early 18th-century brick shaft.

The building's plan reflects its complex development. It likely began as a house with a two-room and through-passage plan, with the left room heated by an end stack and the right room by a rear lateral stack. Around the mid-18th century, a stair projection was added to the rear of the passage, maintaining the through-passage arrangement with stair access from the left. In the late 18th century, an outshot was added across the rear. Also around the mid-18th century, a two-room range with a central entrance was added on the left-hand gable end of the earlier range, heated by a rear lateral stack. In the late 18th century, a coach house and stables were constructed on the left-hand gable end of the mid-18th-century range.

The right-hand range dates to circa the 17th century and comprises three storeys with a regular three-window front, the right-hand side set slightly forward. The ground floor features a four-pane sash window to the left, a set-back 18th-century two-panel door, a tripartite sash, and a 19th-century 12-pane sash to the right. The first floor has two six-pane sashes with a four-pane sash between, and the second floor has two two-light casements. The lower central range is of two storeys with an almost symmetrical three-window front. It includes a 20th-century bay window on the left, a set-back door, and a four-pane sash to the right. The first floor has two four-pane sashes with a blind window in the centre. The two-storey coach house to the left features two wide segmental arched openings with plank doors on the ground floor and two shuttered openings above. The left-hand corner is chamfered.

Internally, the circa 17th-century range contains a 20th-century fireplace heated by a rear lateral stack on the right and a circa late 16th or early 17th-century fireplace on the left. This earlier fireplace has a granite lintel and jambs decorated with roll moulding and triangular motifs with a ball finial to the lintel; the jambs show what are probably diabolo stops, now partly buried as the floor has been raised. Ground-floor partitions have been removed. A circa 18th-century stair to the rear features square newels, square stick balusters, and a deep handrail. The roof structure was replaced in the 18th century; the principals are partly halved, lapped, and pegged at the apices. The centre range has a 20th-century fireplace heated by a rear lateral stack.

Granite hitching posts are located in the garden to the rear.

Historically, The Masons Arms was formerly known as the Lower King's Arms. In November 1753, it was referred to as "that ancient, commodius and well-accustomed inn known by the sign of the King's Arms, situate on the great post road from London to Falmouth". The name was changed to The Bedford Inn in 1783.