Ford Cottages

Ford Cottages comprises three dwellings, originally a late medieval house remodelled in the early 17th century. The exterior is colourwashed render over stone and cob, with a gabled slate roof to the left and an asbestos sheet roof to the right. There is a rendered stone stack at the left end, a late 19th-century brick stack along the ridge, and a 20th-century brick stack at the right end. The original medieval house was of open-hall type and was remodelled in the early 17th century into a two-storey, three-unit plan with a central hall. The building has two storeys and a four-window front. There are three 20th-century lean-to porches with 20th-century doors. The fenestration includes 20th-century casements with glazing bars, some set in chamfered 19th-century frames, with flat rendered arches over them.

Inside, the room to the right has a chamfered bressumer over an open fireplace, with a mid to late 19th-century bread oven inserted, and a chamfered beam. The central room features a stone flag floor, a stop-chamfered beam, two 17th-century stop-chamfered doorframes, and a chamfered bressummer over an open fireplace with a clom oven. The roof is an early 17th-century three-bay A-frame structure with curved collars, butt purlins, and a ridge purlin set in notched apexes, along with original sawn rafters and early 17th-century moulded plaster cornices beneath the collars. These cornices suggest that the early 17th-century ceiling was originally barrel-vaulted. A lower part of a late medieval raised cruck is visible beneath the truss to the left, set into the front wall. An early 17th-century A-frame truss is located over the central hall, to the left of the ridge stack. The interior of the third cottage was not inspected, but is likely to be of interest.