Ware Library

Ware Library

A former dwelling, now a public library, standing on the historic site of The Crown Inn (demolished around 1765). The building dates from the mid and late 18th century, with 19th and 20th century alterations. Modern extensions added to the west side and rear in 1979 are not of special interest.

The main building is three storeys high, with the first and second floors constructed in plum-red brick with cherry-red dressings, above a stuccoed ground floor. A stone modillioned cornice and brick parapet with stone coping run across the front. Behind the parapet sits a hipped old tiled roof with three parallel ridges. The parapet ramps upwards at the sides to join chimneys on the flank walls, which are built in red brick with a projecting band and cap, capped with four pots.

The front elevation features five bays on the first floor, each containing a recessed sash window with glazing bars set in painted reveals beneath rubbed flat arches. The ground floor is faced with mid-19th century stucco with heavy rustication and a moulded cornice. At the centre is a porch with paired Roman Ionic columns and Roman Ionic entablature. Flanking windows on the ground floor are also framed by Roman Ionic columns below entablatures; the columns are Portland stone and may be late 19th century replacements for original stucco. There are four recessed sash windows with glazing bars, a central door, and a fanlight in a plain surround bordered by an archivolt.

The second floor has sash windows set almost flush, with moulded surrounds and exposed boxes, beneath rubbed flat arches.

The rear elevation contains an early 19th century cast-iron loggia with pierced supports, which raises a conservatory to first floor level. A rear door with six flush panels and a square fanlight featuring ogee gothic tracery is recessed in a fluted surround. Rear French casement windows to the main left hand room feature narrow glazed margins and fixed upper lights with a fluted surround. First floor French casements, some with decorative painted glass margins showing a vine pattern, open into the conservatory. The conservatory has small paned glazing with a fixed light on the west side and three sliding sashes on the south. A lead rainwater head on the south-east corner of the three-storey building is dated 1827 and bears the initials EC for Edward Chuck.

A two-storey rear outshoot, constructed as a kitchen, is built in red brick with a machine tiled roof. Its ground floor contains a triple light sash window with glazing bars and a lantern case in the upper part of the left hand sash.

Interior features span from the late 18th to mid-19th centuries. The ground floor right hand room retains 18th century fielded and raised panelling, an elaborate wood cornice with dentil frieze, and a door surround with moulded architraves, a pulvinated frieze with dentils, and a moulded cornice. The entrance hall features mid-19th century segmental quadripartite groined plaster vaulting with paired consoles at the springing line; door architraves have been removed and replaced with reeded plaster surrounds. The ground floor left hand room contains a marble fireplace of around 1840, a plaster cornice with honeysuckle frieze, and egg and dart ovolo moulding.

A dog-leg newel staircase of late 18th century date, of open string construction, leads to the first and second floors. It has Tuscan column newels and slender column on vase balusters, three to each tread, with a moulded ramped handrail. The first half landing has a window with leaded painted glass in the style of Morris and Company, dating to the late 19th century.

The first floor front left hand room has a richly decorated mid-19th century plaster cornice with acanthus frieze and vine pattern, and a ceiling rose with vine leaves in a roundel. The front right hand room retains an 18th century chimneypiece with dentil cornice forming the mantelshelf. The rear room, now a lavatory, has a dado with raised panels and bolection mouldings, and a sash window with quadrant glazing bars of mid-18th century pattern.

The building represents a fine example of the house of a prosperous maltster, embellished with fashionable decorative features accumulated over the years. It was the home of Edward Chuck and Henry Page, two of the town's most prosperous maltsters. Page's maltings survive in much altered form to the rear and are no longer of special interest.