Description

WARE TOWN

TL3514SE WEST STREET
829-1/9/179 (North side)
14/03/74 No.2

GV II*

House, now shop with offices above. Part mid/late C13,
timber-framed, front bay rebuilt C18, building renovated 1980.
Timber-framed, stuccoed, old tiled roof edged with Welsh
slate, with one box casement dormer. 3 bay building at right
angles to the street. 2 storeys and attics, first floor has
one flush-set sash window with glazing bars, exposed boxes and
architrave surrounds. Ground floor has 1980 shopfront with
recessed entrance at left, and display window divided into 3
by mullions.
INTERIOR: renovated and partly opened out 1980, when
timber-framing at rear exposed and recorded. 2 bays survived,
one shortened during C18 reconstruction; and first floor
inserted late C16, attic floor (now removed) C18. Fireplace,
and chimneystack, much altered set centrally through north
exterior wall. Surviving framing includes an open roof truss,
with a straight tie-beam braced by a thick sectioned curved
brace to the principal posts, straight passing braces of
square section notch lapped to the principal posts, trenched
and pegged to the tie-beam, crossing a collar, crossing each
other, and bare-face lap dovetailed to the rafters. Although
fragmentary, the survivals enabled reconstruction of the truss
during renovation of the building. A smoke gablet, with an
exterior bonnet was set over the original north hipped end to
the roof. Several rafters in the east roof slope, including
the bonnet and hip rafter survive. Below the wall plate
surviving original studding indicates an unusually wide
spacing, and a middle rail, later replaced. Notched lap joints
were originally used. One primary tension brace, connecting
wall plate and principal post survives, and the presence of
triangular mortices indicates that there were others. Based on
the typology of the truss, and the use of notched lap dovetail
joints, a date of c1260 has been suggested. The
smoke-blackened rafters, and the presence of a gablet
indicates that the building was initially open to the roof,
and it may have functioned as a kitchen, rather than an open
hall. The presence of a second inclined rafter on the western
roof slope possibly indicates that the building may have been
a service wing to a hall on the adjacent site, No.3 West
Street (rebuilt C19). The west wall of No.2 was altered in C16
with the insertion of the first floor, and long multiple light
windows, partly crossing the location of the conjectured hall.
The front of the building was rebuilt in the early C18 with
largely softwood framing.
(Smith JT: Hertfordshire Houses. Selective Inventory: London:
1993-: 199; Perman D: Ware UD. List of buildings of special
arch or historic interest: 1993-: 62; Hertfordshire
Archaeology: Gibson AVB: Investigation of a C13 building at
No.2 West Street Ware: St Albans & Hertford: 1980-1982:
126-141).

Listing NGR: TL3579214344

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554183

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)