(Grade II listed as separate properties, but cross-referenced in the register)
(Grade II listed as separate properties, but cross-referenced in the register)
From this angle, there seems to have been no changes in this linked pair of houses, but the 1973 photograph shows 20 Market Street, on the right, as WJ Ferry's shop, selling "Fancy Goods, Postcards, Sweets and Cigarettes", and the 1939 directory lists "Herbert Ferry, china and cards dealer" at this address. The cards came from a huge collection of glass-plate negatives, built up through work for the Estate: some of them were always held at the Estate office, others were used for postcards by WH Smith until a fire at their printing works destroyed them, and the remainder were acquired by the Estate at a later date. The present occupant's grandmother, one of the Ferry family, was a dressmaker skilled enough to work for the Lady Ilchester of the day and to teach dressmaking to the village girls.
The Inventory records that both buildings have "re-used ashlar" in the walls ~ a fresh use for recycled Abbey stone ? A middle window on the first floor of 20 Market Street has at some time been blocked up, and a close look at the wall above the left-hand ground floor window implies building work at different times, but the occupant of 20 Market Street believes that this was once a single farm house and bakery which combined these two addresses. Internal evidence in the house supports that belief.
A much earlier photograph (the 1920s postcard from Dave Stevens' collection, right), taken from a different viewpoint, reveals that at one time there was only one window on the Back Street frontage of 2 Back Street: the one on the right of the door had been walled up by then, before being more recently opened up again.