1 3 And 5, Ford Street

Originally a single house, later subdivided into two tenements with shops on the ground floor and rooms above. The building dates from the late 16th or early 17th century and was remodelled and subdivided, probably in the early 19th century.

The structure features pilastered light scantling timber-framing with granite chimney stacks, now truncated. The roof is slate, covered in bitumen, with a gabled end and gabled-ended rear wing.

The original plan comprised a large room—probably the hall—to the left and a smaller room to the right, with another large room behind in a rear wing. The left-hand room is heated from a large stack that backs onto a through-passage. The right-hand room has a fireplace in a stack on the right-hand gable end, and the large rear room contains a substantial fireplace in the same wall. Each ground floor room is heated with rooms on the first and second floors above, except for the unheated second floor of the left-hand room. At the back of the rear wing stood a further three-storey wing, of which only the right-hand side wall survives, featuring fireplaces on each floor.

Subdivision in the 19th century created a partition through the former hall (the left-hand room). Shops were inserted at the front by underbuilding the jetty. An additional room was added at the rear of the left-hand room, in the angle with the rear wing.

The façade comprises two parts, both three storeys with probably raised eaves. Number 1 (the left-hand part) has a ground floor passageway to the left with a moulded granite corbel supporting the jetty above, and a double-fronted 20th-century shop to the right with two 6-light windows in facsimile of a Victorian shopfront. Above are first and second floors, slightly jettied, each with one 2-light 19th-century casement with glazing bars.

Numbers 3 and 5 (the right-hand part) feature a late 19th-century double-fronted shop with 4 lights to the left, 6 large panes to the right, and 1 light to the right-hand return, with a simple wooden shop fascia above. The first floor has two 18th-century 4-pane casements with glazing bars. The second floor is jettied and contains a 3-light casement, possibly of 18th-century origin though heavily restored.

The interior of No. 1 retains a fireplace with large monolithic granite jambs and chamfered granite lintel, the left-hand jamb showing a worn possibly pyramid stop. A moulded ceiling beam with ovolo and fillet moulding and step hollow stops with incised bar passes through the later partition into No. 3; the joists have scratch-moulded soffits. The head beam for the plank and muntin screen between the former hall and passage now sits within the shop. The passage contains a lintel and left-hand jamb of a doorframe with ovolo and fillet moulding. A doorway to the former hall has one chamfered jamb of an old doorframe. The first floor front room fireplace has granite jambs and wooden ovolo-moulded lintel with butt stops.

In Nos. 3 and 5, the ground storey ceiling beam continues from No. 1 with ovolo and fillet moulding and hollow step stops with incised bar. The front room fireplace on the right-hand wall has an ovolo-moulded timber lintel with hollow step stops and incised bar on moulded granite corbels. Scratched on this lintel is "Richard Clampill 1692". The rear room fireplace has a chamfered timber lintel with bar stops and granite jambs. The room above has a fireplace with ovolo and fillet-moulded lintel. The first and second floor front room fireplaces have timber lintels and are blocked with later grates. Only the original north-west side wall survives from the far rear wing, which has a fireplace on each floor: the ground floor fireplace is large with bar stops, the first floor smaller and mutilated, and the second floor smaller still, possibly with bar stops. The ground floor fireplace may have served as the kitchen hearth.

The roof over the left-hand end of the main range (No. 1) has raised eaves and retains at least the front principal rafters, which are halved and pegged into the wall posts.

This late 16th or early 17th-century town house is one of a pair of early town houses with No. 17 The Square. Despite 19th-century subdivision, it retains many original interior features of high quality. The largely unaltered 19th-century remodelled front remains jettied on the first floor, making the building an important feature in the centre of Moretonhampstead.