7 and 8, Market Place

This is a late 16th and early 17th century house, now shops with storage and flats above, located in Hertford Market Place. It was significantly altered and heightened in the early 19th century. The building is timber-framed, with a plastered and part stuccoed front, along with masonry lining, and has a hipped Welsh slate roof featuring a broad panelled soffit supported by slim cut brackets. A rear outshut extending along Honey Lane has an old tiled roof.

The exterior is four storeys high. The first and second floors each have two flush-set sash windows with 12 panes and narrow margin panes. A band runs below the second floor sill. The third floor contains two squat six-pane sashes, also with margin panes. The ground floor is recessed below a jetty, with a corner door to No. 7 set within a broad architrave, plate glass display windows above panelled stallrisers. Recessed three-quarter glazed doors and similar display windows are found at No. 8, with consoles supporting a continuous fascia at bressumer level, and a moulded cornice.

The outshut along Honey Lane, formerly No. 2, has a two-bay front. The jettied first floor has a flush-set 16-pane sash on the left and a closed window without glazing bars on the right. The ground floor showcases a recessed shopfront with two closed plate glass display windows, a central three-quarter glazed door, and cut profiled console brackets supporting a slender doorhead beneath the jetty.

The ground floor of No. 8 includes an ogee moulded beam. The second floor retains wide elm floorboards, while the third floor of No. 7 has a single attic room. No. 7 features exposed beams with chamfer and tongue stops and run-out stops. Extensive basements are present, including a 19th-century fireplace in the front compartment of No. 8. The outshut along Honey Lane displays exposed purlins ceiled at collar level, with rafters not visible.

Historical records, including a view of Hertford Market Place by Thomas Rowlandson circa 1800, show the buildings with jettied gabled roofs above the second-floor level and elaborate pargeted fronts. The early 19th-century reconstruction was thorough, but vestiges of the late medieval structure remain, including the jettied front. The outshut along Honey Lane, now partially integrated with No. 7, retains its late 16th-century appearance.