Shefford Porch

Formerly The Cock Inn
The Cock is Shefford's oldest known inn and believed to be one of the earliest known in the county from records from Bedfordshire County Council and Luton Archives Records Service - first mentioned in 1499. It was then described as: "a messuage called "le Cokke" in Shefford abutting one side on "leffordes" and the other side on the King's highway from Bedford to Hitchin".
The licencing mystery
The first countywide licensing register, which begins in 1822 had no record of it. The records state can only that it closed at some point between 1729 and 1822. The building as seen today still survives in good and commercially workable condition. In 1927 the town of Shefford was valued under the Rating Valuation Act 1925; every piece of land and building was assessed to determine the rates to be paid on it, the Porch included.
A listed building
In 1952 the former Department of Environment listed The Porch House as Grade II "buildings of special interest", it was already a branch of Barclays Bank. The Department's surveyor thought the building to be 16th century, it being made of closely studded timber framing with a red brick infill.
Additions
The shop front is 20th century though "in the early 19th century style" a plaque showed that the building was reworked in 1919 when the ground floor studwork was removed from the cross wing and the new porch created, which now creates a bridge over the top of the footpath.
Often referred to as the Porch House after its most distinctive feature and it continues to be home to Barclays Bank's Shefford branch.
Worth looking at the large view