54 54B, HIGH STREET

WARE TOWN

TL3514SE HIGH STREET 829-1/9/108 (North side) 14/03/74 Nos.54 AND 54B

GV II

House, possibly part of The French Horn Inn in C17, now commercial premises. C16 and C17, altered and refurbished 1980. Timber-framed, stucco-faced, old tiled roof, with one box dormer, and gable on right. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics. First floor has 3 flush-set sash windows with divided glazing and exposed boxes: attic gable at right has one flush-set sash window with glazing bars. Ground floor has modern shopfronts. No.54, at right, 1980s arcaded timber shopfront, with recessed entrance door at centre left. No.54b has mid C20 timber-framed shopfront with plate glass display windows and timber fascia. It infills a carriageway which served the east side of the French Horn complex (qv). Ground floor gutted internally, and structure covered over. First floor, opened up as office space in 1980s, has exposed timber-framing with close-set heavy studwork of C16/C17 origin with curved windbracing. Inserted C17 chimneystack. On first floor south elevation there is at left hand a 3-light window with moulded wooden mullions, now plaster filled, and not visible externally. Higher level of first floor of No.54b, now part of open-plan first floor indicates location of former carriageway on ground floor. (Smith JT: Hertfordshire Houses. Selective Inventory: London: 1993-: 198; Ware Tithe Map: 1845-; Ware 25" to 1 Mile. Surveyed by the Ordnance Survey Department: 1851-; Forrester H: Timber Framed Buildings in Hertford and Ware: Hitchin: 1964-: 41).

Listing NGR: TL3584614305