69 71, High Street

Nos. 69 and 71 High Street, Ware

A former inn range, subsequently converted to a house and now comprising a shop with office above. The building dates from the 17th century or earlier and is timber-framed. It was refronted, extended, and had its roof raised in the 18th century, with further alterations made in the 19th century.

The principal elevation faces south and consists of two storeys with attics. The first floor is constructed in plum-red brick laid in Flemish bond, with a moulded stucco-faced panelled parapet. The roof is of old tiles with a break in the ridge line indicating two periods of construction, and a red brick T-plan chimneystack on the ridge at the right. One modern rooflight replaces three former box dormers.

The first floor contains six recessed sash windows with plate glass set in reveals under rubbed flat arches, with stone cills, spaced in a ratio of 3:1:2. The ground floor is occupied by shopfronts to the left and right of the carriageway.

No. 69 features an elaborate late 19th-century shopfront dating to around 1880. This has stucco flanking pilasters with two tiered foliated capitals loosely based on the Corinthian order, surmounted by a moulded outward-swelling cap forming the base for stucco orbs on pedestals. The shopfront incorporates a stucco stallriser with a moulded timber cill and twin arcaded display windows subdivided by barleysugar-twisted columns. The window heads are arcaded with moulded cast-iron spandrel panels decorated with fruit and foliage. Connecting the twin windows in front of the recessed entrance is an elaborate cast-iron foliated pierced panel bearing the central initials RWH (for R. W. Harradence).

No. 71, to the right of the carriageway, has a late 19th-century shopfront with timber pilasters and elaborately carved moulded console brackets containing the fascia. It features an arcaded shop window over a timber stallriser, with foliated carving in the spandrels of the arcading. The fascia is topped by a moulded cornice. Timber posts and beam serve the carriageway, with paired ornamental 19th-century cast-iron spandrel brackets and plain boarded gates. Exposed timber studwork is visible in the carriageway.

The frontage building was greatly extended to the rear in the 18th century to form a double-pile plan over the carriageway, with rear outshoots on either side of a central yard. This rear section is two storeys high, plastered, with four first-floor windows, coved eaves cornice, and an old tile roof behind No. 69. A long rear outshoot to No. 71 is two storeys in height, with a yellow brick ground floor and oversailing first floor with plaster over timber-framing and a Welsh slate roof.

Internally, the attic over the eastern end of the front range contains smoke-blackened rafters and evidence of a former crown post roof, which was raised in the 18th century when the building was refronted. A dog-leg newel stair runs from the first floor to the attics, constructed with close string, a moulded handrail, and columns on vase balusters. Several first-floor rooms retain 19th-century marble fireplaces, ornamental plasterwork, and display niches from Harradence's showrooms.

This site was formerly occupied by The Catherine Wheel Inn, recorded in 1479, whose owner William Pyrrey has a brass in St Mary's Church. The building formed part of Harradence's Drapery Department Store from 1775 to 1871, together with Nos. 65, 67, and 73, which adjoin it.