99 AND 101, FORE STREET

Building nos. 99 and 101 on Fore Street, Hertford

A house converted to a shop with storage in the former upper dwelling, dating from the early 18th century with alterations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is constructed of orange-red brick laid to Flemish bond with grey overburnt headers, with old tile roofs and a double-depth plan.

The front elevation is a five-bay façade with two storeys and attics. The entry is slightly right of centre, with the staircase hall positioned in the right-hand side. The first floor features five slightly recessed 12-pane sash windows in architrave surrounds beneath rubbed flat arches, set immediately below a moulded base of plat band and cornice. The first-floor plat band is raised above the door to accommodate a former pediment or hood. The ground floor displays two plain-glazed display windows within the voids of former sashes, topped by rubbed flat arches. An 8-panel door stands recessed within an early 19th-century surround of panelled pilasters and a flat hood with moulded cornice, with four upper door panels now glazed. To the left is a late 19th-century shopfront featuring a central glazed door below a blank panel, flanked by slim pilasters and plate-glass closed display windows with moulded sills and stucco stallrisers with plinths. The fascia is flanked by cut consoles with flat stops to a blind box above.

The right side elevation displays an 'M'-shaped gable with two large first-floor sash windows positioned left and right, staircase landing windows of mullion and transom pattern centre right, and a side entry at ground-floor centre left. A projecting half gable marks the rear outshut, with a hip-roofed single-storey outhouse alongside.

The rear elevation contains three truncated 12-pane sashes to the right, a narrowed opening in the centre with an 8-pane sash, and two large 12-pane sashes (probably re-set) in a projecting outshot, with two similar openings on the ground floor below the plat band. The ground floor right has a 19th-century Welsh-slated lean-to extension.

The roofline features a brick parapet above a moulded brick cornice at the front. An 'M'-shaped parapeted gable rises at the right side, with hipped roofing and half-round hip tiles over the rear outshots. Three wood casement dormers punctuate the front: the outer two are gabled whilst the centre dormer has a segmental arched roof, all lead-covered. A single 20th-century tile-roofed gabled casement dormer appears at the rear right, with a small box dormer in the centre of the hip above the outshoot at the left. Four brick chimneystacks stand left and right at the front, the front pair with offset bases, all displaying oversailing courses and earthenware pots.

The ground floor interior has been opened out across the frontage and through to the rear on the left beneath the 19th-century lean-to, though the position of the central passageway is marked by cased beams. The staircase hall and rear doorway with raised hood, now internal with a later lean-to, feature arches with break-front keystones and break-front cornices. A dogleg stair rises to the attics in close string pattern with a 19th-century octagonal newel topped with an acorn head, retaining barley sugar twist column-on-urn balusters to the first floor, with bobbin balusters and elongated urns above, moulded handrails, and a dado with recessed panels and quadrant surrounds. Some first-floor rooms retain cornices and panelled doors with elaborate raised and fielded panelling and a panelled chimneybreast, with an elaborate double wood cornice in the first-floor outshoot room.

The landing and three main attic spaces occupy the second floor, with a separate small north attic featuring an 18th-century blank door above the outshut. The double roof, with a central valley, comprises paired rafters without ridge boards and displays assembly marks in the late medieval tradition.

A basement contains steps with elm treads on brick risers, a brick floor and walls, and fire recesses but no fireplaces.