Kitchen Garden Walls Central Sundial Pillar And 2 Gates At Briggens House Hotel 100 Metres East Of House

The kitchen garden walls, central sundial pillar, and two gates at Briggens House Hotel date from the 18th century and earlier. The walls are made of red brick, with the early 18th-century moulded Portland stone pillar and two wrought iron gates featuring tall brick piers topped with large moulded stone caps and ball finials, added around 1908. The structure is situated on sloping ground to the east of the house, forming a large rectangular enclosure with straight sides to the north, south, and east, while the west side has a three-centred curved retaining wall that includes a central gate and steps leading down into the garden.

A three-metre-high wall along the south side may be a remnant of the formal walled garden at Briggens, as depicted on Drury and Andrews' Map of Hertfordshire from 1766. This wall has a square pier at its southern end, set back from the south wall of the kitchen garden. The lower section of the west wall is constructed of 17th-century brick. The walls are primarily built in Flemish bond red brick with wide joints and courses that follow the slope. The top of the wall has been repaired with grey brick.

The turned stone pillar resembles a large inverted baluster with a circular depression on top and a York stone base. The wrought iron gates, designed in the Arts and Crafts style, feature scrollwork in the upper third and parallel vertical bars below. These elements are likely part of extensive renovations at Briggens undertaken around 1770 by the Blackmore family, with the gates possibly commissioned for H C Gibbs around 1908. This site represents an important historic 18th-century walled garden and is part of the group of buildings at Briggens.