40, Fore Street

40 Fore Street is a two-storey office building dated 1900, located in Chard. It features a stucco exterior with painted stone dressings and a clay tile roof, along with brick stacks. The building has a double-depth central-staircase layout and displays an eclectic Victorian architectural style.

The façade is symmetrical with a six-window range. A 20th-century door, which includes a semi-circular overlight, is set within a doorcase that has banded rusticated pilasters and radial rustication leading to a semi-circular arch with a dated keystone, topped by a moulded cornice. On either side of the door are three-light plate-glass shop windows with eared architraves. Above these, there is a continuous moulded sill band with small brackets supporting the first-floor sills.

On the first floor, there is a central pair of adjacent sash windows set in semicircular-arched moulded architraves with keystones, flanked by pairs of sash windows in eared architraves, with the outer windows being slightly wider. The attic features a central gabled roof dormer with a sash window, and forward-facing gables on either side, each with sash windows in round-arched moulded architraves. All windows above the ground floor have margin pane lights in the upper sashes, while the lower sashes are plain. The building also has chamfered rusticated quoins.

The roof is covered with diagonally-hung clay tiles, featuring a crested ridge and finials on the forward gable. There is a central ridge stack and one on the left gable end. The gables and dormers are adorned with fretted bargeboards and pendants.

Inside, the ground floor has been altered in the 20th century, while the stairs leading to the first floor are open-string with plain balusters and turned newels. The doors to the first floor have stopped chamfered frames, and some original fireplaces can be found in the attic. The building is included for its group value.