Witches Hollow

Witches Hollow is a house that was once an inn, dating from the 17th century. It was converted into two houses in the late 17th century or early 18th century, altered around 1850, and then converted back into a single house in 1936. The building features a timber frame encased in red brick, with brick extensions and old red tile roofs. It is two stories tall with a cellar and faces west, showcasing four windows on the first floor, two two-story rectangular hipped bay windows, and casement windows in between. There is a lobby entrance opposite a large internal chimney, and a third chimney from the north end topped with a cruciform diagonally set shaft. The south gable chimney has a pair of diagonally set square shafts and a single-story extension to the south. Inside, there is a small brick vaulted oven in the north room and a cellar under the rear wing at the northeast. A gabled stair turret with herringbone brickwork is located on the flank above the roof of the entrance lobby on the east, which features a timber-framed gabled porch. The interior shows that the walls have been heightened by 2 feet, with a new roof propped off the old roof. The frame includes jowled posts, tie-beams, and braces that have been cut through, with wide spaced studs in the front and rear walls. The northeast rear wing has a side purlin roof with jowled posts, and there are chamfered axial floor beams. The building was formerly an inn on the route to Berkhamsted, which crossed the main road to the west of the house, now stopped up. Witches Hollow is associated with Rosina Jane Massey, who was reputed to be a witch locally in the mid-19th century.