Glebe House

Glebe House is a large, L-shaped house dating back to the 15th century, or possibly earlier. It began as an unusual open hall house of an “Inverted Wealden” type. A porch and a front lateral chimney were added in the late 16th century, followed by a west wing and a floor inserted into the original hall in the early 17th century. In the 19th century, much of the house was encased in brick, a later addition than the depictions in drawings from the 1830s held at the Hertfordshire Record Office.

The house's original layout is remarkable, combining a square, formerly open hall with smoke-blackened rafters and a two-storey jettied parlour bay on the south side, which served as a service bay and cross-passage to the north. The west wall of the hall was built in line with the projecting upper storey of the south bay, rather than with its lower storey. A short, 1½- and 2-storey block was added to the south end in the 16th century, incorporating a fine two-storey west porch with a front-wall chimney. An early 17th-century chimney stack was built in the hall, backing onto what would have been a cross-passage, when the hall was floored. A two-storey service wing of four structural bays was then added, running west from the hall.

The house is timber-framed with roughcast rendering on parts, exposed close-studding with plastered infill panels on the upper floor of the porch and west wing, and red brick casing in an irregular bond, with a Flemish bond on the ground floor of the west wing. The roofs are steeply pitched, covered with old red tiles. The front of the house has four lattice-paned, leaded casement windows. The two-storey jettied gabled west porch is constructed of red brick with a hollow-moulded square surround to the Tudor arched entrance. Above the doorway, on a stone, is the inscription "Thomas Whitehead 1699," referencing the vicar who held the position at that time, with a two-light window above. A battened front door completes the facade. The south face of the west wing has two windows on each floor, with three-light flush casement windows fitted with iron opening lights, and a later added gable chimney.