Hadham Hall (Hadham Hall School Hertfordshire County Council) 400 Metres From Road

Hadham Hall, near Little Hadham on the north side of Stortford Road, is a Grade II* country house now functioning as a school. It was built around 1572 as a large brick courtyard house for Henry Capel, replacing a 15th-century house to the south-east.

The house was substantially enlarged to the east with terraced gardens around 1634 by Arthur Capel. When the Earl of Essex moved to Cassiobury around 1668, the building was reduced to its south and west wings. Further alterations followed around 1720. The east part of the south wing was demolished in 1848. The building underwent significant renovation and extension to the north between 1901 and 1902, designed by William Minet who was also the owner. It was converted to a school between 1949 and 1952.

The structure is built in English bond narrow red brick with moulded brick plastered mullions and window surrounds. The roofs are of steep old red tiles. The 1902 additions employ red brick with stone dressings and crowsteps.

The present U-shaped plan comprises the substantially intact 16th-century west range, the west half of the 16th-century south range (which includes the outer arch of a central south gateway), and a north range rebuilt in 1902. The latter features a tall single-storey billiard room. Cellars of the south range continue eastward beneath the garden. The west range originally contained sets of lodgings on two floors and attics, accessed from the courtyard through small doorways, now mostly blocked. A central west gateway flanked by semi-octagonal turrets serves as the present main entrance. A wide corridor with heavy timbered partition and moulded arched doorways survives on the first floor, running within the back of this range.

The west front presents a symmetrical composition of two storeys with plinth and parapet ramping up to three-storey crenelated turrets. A straight gabled parapet rises three storeys at the centre, crowned with a round arched stone entrance featuring moulded imposts and a correctly proportioned Doric entablature with paterae between triglyphs, which originally broke forward for columns now removed. The front displays four-light ovolo-moulded, mullioned and transomed windows with pediments—two windows on each floor flanking the gateway, with smaller pedimented windows to the turrets and attics. Panelled square brick finials mark the corners. Parapeted gables have chimneys each with two octagonal shafts, one decorated. Roof structure and the rebuilt parapet suggest former gabled dormers, possibly crow-stepped, along the west front. A crow-stepped west gable of the south wing is original. Straight joints indicate the north half of the west range was built first, followed by the south half and turrets.

The roof structure employs clasped purlin collar trusses with curved wind braces unusually rising from the top of the purlin to the principal. Cranked timbers carry a platform for a cupola, now lost.

Interior features of note include a ground floor room south of the gateway with an early 18th-century stair in a D-shaped rear projection and a fine Arts and Crafts chimneypiece of around 1902. This chimneypiece is of polished hardwood inset with large Persian tiles, decorated enamelled band, carved achievement, and a deep ceramic frieze of cats at ceiling height—a rebus of Minet. A fine 16th-century chimneypiece with painted oak panelling survives in the south-west room. Two panelled rooms above are now combined, retaining small 17th-century oak panelling and a fluted frieze with triglyphs. A corner lobby in the south-east contains wainscot with cockspur hinges.

The first floor of the south range, which originally rose lofty above a ground floor raised on a tunnel-vaulted cellar with four-centred vault, was divided around 1720. Fine bolection-moulded, panelled interiors with moulded cornices, six-panelled doors and tall sash windows extend along the south front. A square pier rises from cellar floor to support central fireplaces on the first floor. The ground floor has small round-headed windows and a 17th-century external stack at the south-east corner.

The north range contains service rooms with domestic accommodation above. Tall fluted pilasters flank the south fireplace, which features a 'Japanese' cast iron grate of Thomas Jeckyll design.

Hadham Hall forms the centrepiece of an important group of historic buildings.