(Ponsford House) Including Front Area Railings To North

Ponsford House is a substantial town house on the south side of Cross Street in Moretonhampstead. Built in the early to mid-18th century, reputedly around 1740, it was refashioned in the early 19th century and altered again in the later 19th century.

The house is constructed of granite rubble, stuccoed with incised lining to simulate ashlar, and finished with rusticated stucco quoins, a moulded stucco plinth, and a moulded band at first floor level. It has a steeply pitched dry slate roof with gabled ends abutting the adjoining buildings and moulded wooden dentilled eaves cornice. The right-hand gable end has 19th-century shaped bargeboards. A rendered chimney stack stands at the left-hand gable end with a later brick cap, while the right-hand end stack is truncated. A rear wing features a stack at its gable end, a dry slate roof, and reused early crested ridge tiles, with Victorian crested ridge tiles on the main roof.

The building is 2 storeys and attic with an almost symmetrical 3-window front range, windows slightly closer-spaced to the right. The windows have exposed moulded frames and renewed 12-pane sashes, with square hoodmoulds on the first floor. A central doorway has fielded panel reveals, a reeded frieze, and a fielded panel door with glazed top panels. The entrance is sheltered by a porch with Tuscan columns supporting a moulded canopy.

The plan follows a 2-room single-depth arrangement with a central entrance passage that originally led to a stair tower in the angle with a contemporary early 18th-century rear wing. This rear wing, which survives at the rear of the right-hand room, contained the kitchen. The stair tower was replaced in the 19th century by a 2-storey lean-to on the inner side of the wing, containing late 19th-century stairs and providing passage access to first floor rooms in the rear wing. The original rear wing is not at precise right angles to the front range and less than 90 degrees, presumably owing to site constraints. A 2-storey and basement rear wing has an outer west side that is 2 windows wide with 18th and early 19th-century 12-pane sashes; the left-hand ground floor has a 16-pane sash, a 13-light fixed window, and a boarded basement door.

Internally, the two principal front rooms have removed chimneypieces with exposed fireplace lintels; the left-hand room's lintel has beam moulding and may be reused. The first floor left-hand room retains an early 19th-century reeded architrave chimneypiece, whilst the first floor right-hand room has a chimneypiece with dentilled cornice. A small room between the two has a fielded panel cupboard. Moulded plasterwork is absent except in the entrance hall passage, which has a moulded cornice and reeded borders. The large kitchen fireplace retains its simple wooden chimneypiece. Most 18th-century fielded 2-panel doors survive in moulded doorcases, and some doors have 19th-century applied reeded moulding matching other early 19th-century panelled doors. Stairs in the 2-storey outshut are late 19th century, featuring turned balusters and a heavy turned newel. The attic garrets were not inspected but apparently contain an unpartitioned fireplace.

The front area railings with spearheads on shafts set in a granite plinth are included in the listing, with boot scrapers either side of the porch.

According to local tradition, Ponsford House was built for Dr Ponsford's mistress circa 1740. This substantial early 18th-century house retains most of its internal joinery intact. The exterior has remained largely unaltered since the 19th century and forms an important architectural element in Cross Street.