38, Gaddesden Row

38 Gaddesden Row is a house that dates back to the 16th century, with alterations made in the late 17th century. The western part of the house was built in the early 18th century and it underwent renovation around 1980. The structure features a timber frame resting on a brick sill, with the ground floor faced in red brick and the first floor covered in red tile hanging, which has a scalloped band. The western end is finished in red brick, arranged in a chequered pattern with vitrified blue headers. The house has steep old red tile roofs and is two storeys high, set back from the road and facing south. The roof of the higher western part extends down as a catslide to the front, providing shelter for a corner porch.

The house is a two-bay structure that was likely originally open to the roof, but a floor was inserted later, and a chimney was added to the western end in the late 17th century. The early 18th-century western service bay may have replaced a weaker earlier structure, as indicated by a decorative rib on the western face of the chimney, which is now located in the attic of the western extension. The southern front features a gabled dormer on the western side and two 2-light casement windows, along with three-light casements on the ground floor. A large internal chimney rises from the higher roof next to the lower section.

Inside, the house displays jowled posts, straight heavy braces connected to tie beams, and straight-tension braces in the long walls. The front and rear walls on both floors have wide-spaced studs that are exposed. There are chamfered axial beams with hollow stops, heavy squared joists, and squint-butted scarf joints in the wall-plates. The roof is a clasped-purlin type with collar-and-queen-strut trusses and straight wind-braces. An interior full-height framed partition divides the two bays of the older part of the house. A large open fireplace serves the hall, which is the middle room, and there are stairs leading to the cellar and first floor beside the chimney on the south side. Additionally, there is a deep well located in the cellar beneath the western end.