2, West Street

WARE TOWN

TL3514SE WEST STREET 829-1/9/179 (North side) 14/03/74 No.2

GV II*

House, now shop with offices above. Part mid/late C13, timber-framed, front bay rebuilt C18, building renovated 1980. Timber-framed, stuccoed, old tiled roof edged with Welsh slate, with one box casement dormer. 3 bay building at right angles to the street. 2 storeys and attics, first floor has one flush-set sash window with glazing bars, exposed boxes and architrave surrounds. Ground floor has 1980 shopfront with recessed entrance at left, and display window divided into 3 by mullions. INTERIOR: renovated and partly opened out 1980, when timber-framing at rear exposed and recorded. 2 bays survived, one shortened during C18 reconstruction; and first floor inserted late C16, attic floor (now removed) C18. Fireplace, and chimneystack, much altered set centrally through north exterior wall. Surviving framing includes an open roof truss, with a straight tie-beam braced by a thick sectioned curved brace to the principal posts, straight passing braces of square section notch lapped to the principal posts, trenched and pegged to the tie-beam, crossing a collar, crossing each other, and bare-face lap dovetailed to the rafters. Although fragmentary, the survivals enabled reconstruction of the truss during renovation of the building. A smoke gablet, with an exterior bonnet was set over the original north hipped end to the roof. Several rafters in the east roof slope, including the bonnet and hip rafter survive. Below the wall plate surviving original studding indicates an unusually wide spacing, and a middle rail, later replaced. Notched lap joints were originally used. One primary tension brace, connecting wall plate and principal post survives, and the presence of triangular mortices indicates that there were others. Based on the typology of the truss, and the use of notched lap dovetail joints, a date of c1260 has been suggested. The smoke-blackened rafters, and the presence of a gablet indicates that the building was initially open to the roof, and it may have functioned as a kitchen, rather than an open hall. The presence of a second inclined rafter on the western roof slope possibly indicates that the building may have been a service wing to a hall on the adjacent site, No.3 West Street (rebuilt C19). The west wall of No.2 was altered in C16 with the insertion of the first floor, and long multiple light windows, partly crossing the location of the conjectured hall. The front of the building was rebuilt in the early C18 with largely softwood framing. (Smith JT: Hertfordshire Houses. Selective Inventory: London: 1993-: 199; Perman D: Ware UD. List of buildings of special arch or historic interest: 1993-: 62; Hertfordshire Archaeology: Gibson AVB: Investigation of a C13 building at No.2 West Street Ware: St Albans & Hertford: 1980-1982: 126-141).

Listing NGR: TL3579214344