Dimsdale House

Dimsdale House

A three-storey inn, subsequently public house, now university residence, located on Fore Street in Hertford. Dating from the early 19th century with late 19th-century alterations and extensions.

The front elevation presents a four-bay stuccoed brick façade in yellow-grey gault brick laid in Flemish bond, with full-height pilasters at the left and between the third and fourth bays. The building is topped by a hipped Welsh slated roof concealed by a parapet, with brown brick chimneystacks carrying tall orange clay pots. A former moulded eaves cornice has been removed. The first and second floors feature regularly spaced windows: first-floor 16-pane sashes and second-floor 12-pane sashes in a 3:1 spacing, with a plat band at second-floor level. At first-floor level runs a full-width late 19th-century cast-iron balcony carried on brackets with frontal panels decorated with bamboo leaves and sunflower motifs, and upright balusters topped with fleur-de-lys finials. The centre displays a taller pierced frontal bearing cast-iron lettering reading "Dimsdale Arms".

The ground floor contains an arched doorway at the left with a recessed glazed screen fitted with double-leaf half-glazed doors, two recessed sash windows with leaded light glazing and stone sills in the centre bays, and at the right a carriageway with an elliptical arch above an impost band.

The rear elevation features a plate-glazed sash window and a central projecting canted oriel bay with a triple sash on the first floor, alongside leaded mullion and transom windows at ground-floor level. The right-hand eastern outshut displays flush-set and recessed sash windows on the first floor, with a wide projecting bay featuring leaded mullion and transom windows beneath a flat roof, and 12-pane sashes set beneath segmental brick arches elsewhere.

The left-hand western former stable wing has a jettied first floor containing four flush-set windows with cornice heads, irregular spacing of doors and windows recessed in colourwashed brick at ground floor, and a dark stained weatherboarded southern end.

The interior retains an entrance hall with a 19th-century mosaic floor and fireplace, alongside a late 19th-century staircase in Jacobean style featuring a close string, newels with strapwork and ogee ornament, hardwood rail, and curtail steps. The former bar areas contain early 20th-century brick fireplaces, panelled dado, and a 19th-century bar counter which was altered and extended in the 1920s. The upper floors were gutted and refurbished during conversion to student residence in 1992.

Originally named the Duncombe Arms, the building served as headquarters for Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, Whig MP for Hertford from 1826 to 1832, who famously spent approximately £40,000 on five contested elections in the borough. The inn was subsequently renamed after the distinguished Dimsdale family: Dr Thomas Dimsdale pioneered inoculation in the 18th century and was created a Baron of the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great, whilst in the mid 19th century Thomas, 4th Baron Dimsdale, was prominent in Tory politics.

The structure comprises a three-storey frontage block with carriageway access to a rear courtyard flanked by long narrow wings, with part timber-framed and weatherboarded rear sections.