130, Fore Street

A timber-framed house, now in office use, with origins in the early to mid 17th century. The front range was rebuilt and refronted in the early 19th century, and late 19th-century rear gabled outshuts were added. The building is plastered and pebbledashed with a colourwashed front, while the rear is plastered with a red brick Flemish bond outshut. The roof is Welsh slated above broad eaves with paired shallow brackets and panelled soffits to the front block; the rear retains an old tiled roof.

The building rises to three storeys at the front and two storeys at the rear, with an attic room in the east-facing gable of the rear range. The original plan comprised four rooms with central fireplaces serving the full width of the front range, with a central entry. Two rear wings are separated by a narrow yard, now enclosed, with a central staircase positioned between the fireplaces.

The first floor features three flush-set sashes with 16 panes and moulded architrave surrounds. The second floor has three squat 12-pane windows. The ground floor displays a canted mid-19th-century triple sash bay window with divided glazing on the left and, on the right, a 19th-century shop window divided into ten large panes with a ventilation strip above. A slim surround with panelled pilasters, consoles flanking the fascia, and a slim cornice frames this frontage. The central doorway has a late 20th-century glazed door with an arcaded head below a fanlight with tracery of interlaced circles, and a moulded architrave surround. A projecting porch with four slender cast-iron Tuscan Doric columns, entablature, and cast-iron balcony railing with interlaced circles and lattice patterns fronts the entrance.

The rear elevation is twin gabled with two large 19th-century sash windows below rubbed red brick flat arches on the left, and a two-storey canted bay on the right with large 19th-century sashes. Rubbed flat arches and bands of Staffordshire blue bricks characterise this elevation.

The roof is hipped to the west and gabled to the east, with twin projecting gables, 20th-century clay tiles, and tilehanging in the right gable. Chimneystacks occupy the centre: the eastern stack dates to the mid 17th century, built in red brick with six clustered octagonal flues with moulded bases and a cap with mounded bands; the western stack was rebuilt in the 18th century as a single red brick stack with bands and oversailing courses, topped with four orange clay pots. A single-storey outbuilding with a 20th-century clay tile roof and projecting tile-hung gable stands to the west.

The interior was opened out on the ground floor and repaired following a fire in 1986. The east room retains moulded beams, and reproduction oak panelling was installed after the fire. Brick fireplaces with Tudor arches with moulded jambs and intrados are present, the western example having been restored. Between the chimneys rises a stair with a reset heavy newel of tapered pilaster pattern, complete with a square urn finial on a pedestal and a moulded handrail. The ground floor now forms a single room with twin adjacent doors and red brick fireplaces, with an eight-panel door with cockscomb hinges adjoining. The east wall contains two blocked two-light windows with ovolo mullions. Rear rooms feature 19th-century fire surrounds, one with eared architraves, a bolection frieze, a moulded shelf, and a panelled overmantel.

The stair to the second floor and attics has stick balusters and newels with ball finials. The west room has an 18th-century architrave fire surround with a moulded shelf and a late 19th-century cast-iron grate decorated with "aesthetic" Japanese disc ornament. The roof structure retains some halved and pegged rafters, and the rear east gable contains heavy studding.

The building has been identified as one of three houses built in Hertford by John Kelinge shortly before 1649.