Place House

Place House is a medieval manor house of exceptional historical importance, originally built with an aisled hall in the late 13th century. The building has undergone significant alterations and extensions in the late 15th to early 16th century, 17th century, and 18th century, and was comprehensively restored in 1977-78 by architect Gilbert Williams. It now functions as a community hall (Place House itself), an office suite (Number 20), and two maisonettes (Numbers 21 and 22), having previously served as a school.

The building is timber-framed with plastered, pebbledashed and colourwashed surfaces, with some areas cased in red brick. It has multiple gabled roofs covered in old tiles, with hipped sections over the rear of Numbers 21 and 22, and brick chimneystacks. The core structure comprises a two-bay aisled hall with a cross passage and service wing to the right (east).

Exterior

The building is two storeys high with attics above the service wing, which forms part of Numbers 21 and 22.

The south front faces the garden and is dominated by a projecting two-storey 17th-century gabled porch. The entrance beneath features a heavy late 13th-century chamfered pointed timber arch, now fitted with a pair of 20th-century half-glazed doors opening into the screens passage. Above the entrance is a room with a two-light casement window with divided glazing. The roof is concealed by four coped gables; a rainwater head dated 1718 sits between the first two gables from the left. To the left of the porch, the first floor has two two-light casement windows with small panes, with twin gables above featuring parapets that conceal the roof. A 17th-century rendered chimneystack with offsets stands at the far left, with a brick stack above (rebuilt in 1977). The ground floor has a pair of 20th-century French casement doors with divided glazing set beneath a segmental arch, and one two-light casement window. To the right of the porch is a three-light mullion and transom window on the first floor with small panes, and a recessed sash window lighting the attics above. Another rendered 17th-century chimneystack with a brick stack above stands at the right end.

The left (west) side elevation faces Bluecoat Yard. The main block is two storeys and features restored multi-light mullioned windows that light the upper part of the hall and the roof structure within. A rendered chimneystack with a brick shaft stands at the right. In the centre is an early 19th-century doorway with a five-panel door: two flush panels at the bottom, two fielded and raised panels in the centre, and an upper panel glazed as three lights. The door is set in an architrave surround with a doorcase featuring slim reeded pilasters, capitals with paterae, an Adam-style frieze with garlands, a reeded cornice, and a projecting two-panelled flat door hood with a lead flat roof. To the left on the ground floor is an early 19th-century canted bay window with a brick base, sashes with glazing bars, and a concave lead canopy roof. On the first floor is a four-light mullion and transom casement window with glazing bars. This section is cased in 18th-century red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a brick stack featuring offsets and a brick upper shaft at the left.

Beyond this is an outbuilding rebuilt in 1977, single storey with attics facing Bluecoat Yard, featuring one two-light 20th-century casement window on the ground floor and a 20th-century gabled dormer in the old tiled roof.

The rear (north) elevation has a recessed centre encased in red brick laid in Flemish and irregular bond. This two-storey section includes an entrance door to Number 22 (maisonette) positioned to reflect the cross passage. The two-panelled door is recessed in an early 18th-century architrave surround with a fanlight of two fixed lights, each divided into four panes. There is a 20th-century window with a top-hung opening casement with small panes below a segmental brick arch, and at the right, twin-leaved half-glazed early 19th-century doors beneath a segmental brick arch, now forming the entrance to Number 20 (first-floor office suite). The first floor has two two-light casement flush windows beneath half-brick flat arches, and one small and one large brick gable with parapets concealing the roof. A rainwater head dated 1718 is positioned at the right.

At the left is the projecting service wing, two storeys with attics, plastered, pebbledashed and colourwashed over a timber frame. Projecting further north is a single-storey 18th-century outbuilding, altered in the 1970s, built of brick with an old tiled roof.

Interior

The most significant feature of Place House is the aisled hall, consisting of two unequal bays with a spere truss and screens passage to the east. The hall has octagonal columns with square pads, moulded bases and moulded capitals. Arch-braced tie-beams with intermediate struts span the space—the arch braces in the centre were restored in 1977 to a more slender section than indicated by the original mortices. The tie-beam is cambered and features twin bold roll mouldings that continue around the hall as a cornice. At the west end, the cornice runs across a tie-beam (now removed) that marked the position of a three-bay cross-wing; the locations for whose tie-beams are indicated by dovetail housings in the wall plate. Mortices in the east arcade post at first-floor level within Number 20 indicate the original existence of a further bay to the east.

Two bays of the south aisle survive. In the 18th century, a fireplace was inserted in the north aisle. The roof is a crown post structure with a central octagonal crown post featuring a moulded base and cap, with fore-and-aft bracing to the collar purlin and lateral bracing to the collars. A square crown post stands at the west end, above the tie-beam marking the screen position. An archaic splayed and tabled scarf joint in the arcade plate to the east of the central truss has been cited as confirming the 13th-century date of the original structure.

The spere screen, originally removable, dates from the early 16th century. It has two octagonal posts with moulded bases and caps carved with pomegranates and Tudor roses, and is divided into twelve panels—plain below and ornamental above in two rows, featuring urns, flowers and heraldic motifs. The half-rose combined with half-pomegranate was a badge used by Mary Tudor, Lady of the Manor in 1550, and it has been suggested that the shield with three motifs shows well-heads and represents the badge of her steward, Richard Welles. The date 1637 painted on the screen is later than its construction.

The corner fireplaces were inserted in the late 17th century when Christ's Hospital adapted the building for use as Bluecoats School. The rear ground-floor room behind the hall contains reset 17th-century panelling and a mid-18th-century fireplace surround with a moulded architrave.

East of the screens passage, the service wing was constructed in the early 17th century. The ground-floor room east of the hall—the parlour—was decorated with painted-on panelling as a wainscot, with florid scrollwork above. The remaining ground-floor rooms served as service rooms including the kitchen and buttery. Above were four rooms, accessed by a close-string newel staircase with bobbin balusters to the first floor and 'S' splat balusters in the flights to the attics. The service wing is now shared between Numbers 20, 21 and 22.

Historical Note

Ware Manor was held by Hugh de Grentmesnil in 1086. Place House was probably constructed during the tenure of John Wake, 1285-1300. Joan of Kent, widow of the Black Prince and mother of Richard II, held the Manor between 1352 and 1384. The Manor descended by marriage to Richard III and was granted by Henry VII to his mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, in 1487, who held it until 1509. Between 1575 and 1587, the Manor was acquired by Thomas Fanshawe, who built Ware Park and leased out the Manor House. Humphrey Packer, who leased part of the Manor in the mid-17th century, may have rebuilt the east wing.

Christ's Hospital acquired the property with the remainder of Bluecoat Yard in November 1685 and remodelled Place House by demolishing the west wing and adapting the hall as a large classroom, extending it northwards and demolishing the north aisle. The south aisle was heightened to two storeys and the corner fireplaces were added. The east wing was adapted as the schoolmaster's house. The Bluecoat School at Ware closed in 1761. An upper floor was inserted in the schoolroom in the late 18th century and removed in 1977. Place House returned to educational use in the mid-19th century, which ceased by 1880.

In the early 1970s, Place House, which had deteriorated, was acquired and restored by the Hertfordshire Building Preservation Trust Ltd., with Gilbert Williams as architect. It was re-opened in 1978 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The building is one of the most important early medieval timber-framed structures in the County.