Rankin House

WARE TOWN

TL3514SE WEST STREET 829-1/9/183 (North side) 08/05/50 No.8 Rankin House

II

House, subsequently Town Hall', now offices. Early C18, altered early C19. Brick, stucco faced, Welsh slated roof behind parapet, with C20 box casement dormer, red brick chimneystacks. EXTERIOR: front elevation altered early C19, plinth, plat band at first floor level, cornice, 5 first floor sash windows with exposed boxes in shallow reveals, and small panes. Ground floor with 4 long sash windows in shallow reveals with exposed boxes, and small paned glazing. Central porch, 4 steps up from ground level, with Greek Ionic columns, Tuscan Doric responds, and entablature with fascia, frieze, cornice and blocking course. 4 fielded panelled door with rectangular fanlight, and pointed, arched glazing bars, in reveal below porch. Plain rear elevation, 3 storeys, stuccoed with plat bands at first and second floor levels, 5 flush set sash windows with glazing bars first and second floors, altered ground floor with linked mullion and transom casements, and central half-glazed door. INTERIOR: double-pile plan comprises 4 rooms around a narrow hall which traverses the house. Early C18 newel staircase with square newels with recessed panels with bolection moulding, moulded caps with cyma reversa, and sweeping moulded handrails. Column on vase balusters, and heavy moulded close string. Dado with moulded cap, and raised fielded panels with bold cornices, pilaster with honeysuckle caps, and heavily moulded fruit and flowers over arched niche in ground floor left hand front roofs. The entrance hall has bands of vitruvian scroll moulding, and arches supported on moulded consoles. The building functioned as a privately runTown Hall' from 1867, administered by a syndicate of local businessmen, and a meeting room was built behind it, demolished in the 1950s. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N (rev. Cherry B): Hertfordshire: Harmondsworth: 1977-: 379; Smith JT: Hertfordshire Houses. Selective Inventory: London: 1993-: 199; Ware 25" to 1 Mile. Surveyed by the Ordnance Survey Department: 1851-; Moodey GE: East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society Newsletter: Hertford: 1953-).

Listing NGR: TL3576614354