O'Rourke

Detached six-bay two-storey farmhouse with dormer attic, c.1875, incorporating fabric of earlier inn, c.1800, with shopfront to centre ground floor. Reroofed. Now entirely in residential use. Pitched roof with replacement artificial slate, clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, slightly sproketed eaves, and iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Painted roughcast walls with rendered quoined piers to ends. Square-headed window openings with rendered sills, and one-over-one timber sash windows. Square-headed door opening with replacement timber panelled door having overlight. Square-headed door opening to left ground floor with timber panelled double doors having overpanel. Timber shopfront to centre ground floor on a symmetrical plan with pilasters, fixed-pane (three-light) timber display windows on panelled risers having wrought iron hanging bars, glazed timber panelled double doors having overlight, and fascia having moulded cornice. Interior with timber panelled reveals/shutters to window openings. Road fronted with concrete footpath to front, and cut-stone wheelguard to corner.

A middle-size house positioned on a site overlooking the River Nore making a pleasant impression on the visual appeal of the locality: believed to incorporate the fabric of an earlier Ford Inn the house represents the continuation of a long-standing occupation of the site. Reputed to have operated as a self-sufficient farmhouse until the mid twentieth century whereby produce from the attendant plots was sold on site the building bears the unusual distinction of having agricultural associations in an urban setting. Having been well maintained the house presents an early aspect with most of the historic fabric surviving intact both to the exterior and to the interior: a finely-detailed symmetrically-planned shopfront of artistic design significance exhibiting very high quality craftsmanship further enhances the street presence of the house.