22 And 24, St Andrew Street

HERTFORD

TL3212NW ST ANDREW STREET 817-1/16/208 (North side) 12/04/73 Nos.22 AND 24

GV II

House, now shops and offices, early C17, altered C19 and extended C20. Timber-framed and stuccoed, double gabled old tiled roofs, with early C19 Gothick moulded and traceried barge boards and cut pinnacle finials and pendants, facing street, Welsh slated, C19 raised infill between gables at rear. Red brick chimneystack of 2 back-to-back shafts with oversailing band and orange clay pots centre right. Double-depth plan with 2 bay jettied front. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attics. First floor has 2 flush-set 12-pane sash windows with architrave surrounds. Attics have 2 squat 6 paned sashes high in gables. Ground floor recessed beneath jetty. At left, 6-panel door, upper 2 glazed, in rusticated plaster surround gives access to No.26 adjoining (qv), C19 shopfront with closed plate glass display window above brown glazed brick stallriser, flanked by pilasters with foliated consoles between jetty. Three quarter glazed door left of centre with rusticated stuccoed pilasters. Main shop window at right divided into 3 lights by moulded mullions with stallriser, pilasters and consoles at left. Rear has large lean-to outshut at left, 2-storey weatherboarded outshut with old tiled roof and substantial external yellow brick chimney behind No.24. INTERIOR: ground floor opened out into single retail area around central chimneystack with back-to-back fireplaces originally serving 2 north rooms. Heavy exposed timbers in ceiling. Right front (east) has a beam, with mortices for studwork, running inwards indicating a corridor and a transverse beam with chamfer and tongue stop with shutter grooves and mortices for mullion suggesting an inner partition closing off a shop, possibly original, on the front ground floor right (east). Early C19 stair, dogleg, with newel and windows, to first floor, alongside stack, now exposed as brickwork with remains of coarse straw parging. Principal fireplace faces front right (east) room, with much repaired C17 plank door, now opening into lobby created to avoid passing through west room. Attic above east rooms in 2 levels indicating raised ceiling at front, rafters much renewed but mortices for collars in a pair of halved and pegged rafters above the tie beam suggests that a crown post structure was removed to create the east attic. Roof over west not inspected. (Forrester H: Timber-framed buildings in Hertford and Ware: Hitchin: 1964-: 17-8; Smith JT: English Houses 1200-1800: The Hertfordshire Evidence: London: 1992-: 160, 162; Smith JT: Hertfordshire Houses: Selective Inventory: London: 1993-: 87).

Listing NGR: TL3238112653