Charles And Sons Including Back Yard Wall Adjoining North

This building, known as Charles and Sons, is a house with shop premises located in the centre of Moretonhampstead. It dates from the 18th century or early 19th century, with a late 19th-century shop front. The exterior is made of granite, stuccoed with ashlar joint lining, and features exposed granite at the rear. The roof is thatched with half-hipped gable ends, and there is a rendered chimneystack at the left-hand end, along with an internal lateral stack at the rear right with a brick shaft.

The building has a rectangular plan with a rounded rear left corner. The original internal layout is uncertain, but it may have originally been a pair of two-room double-depth cottages, with a late 19th-century shop occupying the ground floor of the right-hand cottage. The shop has since been extended into the front room on the left. Alternatively, it could have been a single house with a shop added in the late 19th century, moving the doorway to the domestic area to the left.

The building is two storeys high with an attic and has a symmetrical three-window range. The first floor features late 19th-century four-light sashes in earlier moulded frames, while the left-hand window on the ground floor has an unmoulded frame. There is an early 19th-century six-panel door to the left of centre, and a Victorian double-fronted shop to the right and centre, complete with a fascia and moulded cornice, original glazed double doors with an overlight, and flanking canted windows. The shop has fluted mullions with fleur-de-lis capitals and bulbous acanthus bases, and there is a thatched gabled dormer to the right of centre.

At the rear, the right-hand window has a reused ovolo moulded wooden lintel. Inside, there are rough chamfered ceiling cross-beams in the shop, but the rest of the interior, including the roof, was not inspected. The property also includes a tall granite rubble wall that encloses the back yard and faces the street at the rear.

Overall, this building has changed little since the 19th century and retains a fine Victorian shop front. It is notable for having a thatched roof, which is uncommon in town centres where roofs have typically been replaced with other materials. This makes the building an important feature in the town centre of Moretonhampstead.