121-129, FORE STREET

Nos 121-129, Fore Street, Hertford

A girls' school built in 1778 for Christ's Hospital, subsequently used as staff quarters, now subdivided into five houses. The building is constructed of brown brick with cherry red dressings and retains an old tiled roof.

The building is arranged as a single terrace of two storeys with attics. The front elevation displays twelve first-floor recessed sash windows with glazing bars, arranged in pairs of six within each wing and alternating between single and triple lights. These windows sit beneath red rubbed flat arches. The ground floor contains doorways below single sashes, with triple-light sashes matching the pattern of the first floor. A projecting plat band marks the first-floor level.

Two floors to the left (Nos 121 and 123) have three-light fanlights with flat hoods above their doorways. To the right are two similar doors with trelliswork porches and coved lead roofs. The centre bay of the front elevation features a large Venetian window on the first floor—a former classroom window with triple sashes of twelve, twenty, and twelve panes respectively, with an arched top in the centre and radiating bars, set beneath rubbed red brick flat and semicircular arches. Niches flank this window on either side, containing statues of Bluecoat girls. Central triple sash windows occupy the ground floor, and the attic storey features a pediment with a central lunette.

The rear elevation has been substantially altered with single-storey brick hip-roofed projections flanking the centre and raised flat-roofed extensions on the first floor. At the centre stand two bays of former schoolrooms, built as single storeys with attics in brick with old tiled roofs. Large gabled dormers feature to the left and a gabled projection to the right. Two large multi-paned triple-light Venetian windows with brick rubbed arches and stone keyblocks light these schoolrooms. The ground floor has a projecting brick porch offset right of centre with a red semicircular arched doorway containing a late 20th-century battened door. A half-glazed door with margin glazing is set in the left gable, with an attic lunette featuring radiating bars.

The roof displays eight casement dormers with moulded cornices and lead cheeks, their flat roofs finished with parapeted gable ends to left and right. A moulded wood eaves cornice runs below, with central pediments at both front and rear. Five brick chimney stacks are positioned at the ends and along the ridge, each featuring oversailing courses and earthenware pots.

The interior was not inspected during the survey.

Christ's Hospital purchased the Hertford site north of Fore Street in 1683, but the girls' school was not constructed until 1778 as a self-contained block, with the boys' school continuing to occupy the major part of the site until the move to Horsham at the turn of the 19th century. The girls' block was extended in the 19th century by the addition of the rear schoolrooms. Following construction of new dormitory blocks in 1904–1906, the former girls' school was converted to staff accommodation, a use it retained until 1986, when it was divided into five residential units.