73 75, HIGH STREET

This building, comprising numbers 73 and 75 High Street, is a former inn range now used as commercial premises, with a bank on the ground floor to the right of the carriageway. The structure dates back to the 15th century, with alterations in the 17th century and a refronting in the 19th century. A banking hall was created by opening out the ground floor in 1972-73. The exterior is rendered in colourwashed stucco, topped with a Welsh slated roof.

The building is two storeys high, featuring an eaves cornice. The first floor has four flush-set sash windows with glazing bars; two have 12 panes and two have 16 panes. A late 19th-century shopfront occupies the left side of the carriageway. It features a plastered stallriser, moulded cill, moulded glazing bars, and arcaded heads, now converted into a single display window. A glazed entrance door is located to the left. A fascia, supported by a projecting corbel bracket, covers a jetty bressumer. A moulded base sits below the fascia, with a projecting moulded cornice above. A carriageway is positioned to the left of the centre, and a mid-1970s front enhances the banking hall on the right. Early 19th-century brick outshoots with slated roofs, together with a red brick coach house and stables from around 1890, are situated behind the main building.

Interior work carried out in 1972-73 revealed elaborate roll-moulded beams in the ground floor ceiling, now concealed by a modern suspended ceiling. A 15th-century moulded bracket supporting the first-floor jetty, resting on a half-octagonal post with a moulded cap, was uncovered in the right-hand party wall and is displayed in a glazed case in the banking hall. Also visible is a panel of 17th-century pargeting decorated with a rope twist or guilloche. During the work, the front wall revealed close studding with brick nogging infilling, along with the moulded jambs and central mullions of a two-light upper window, originally with arched heads. These features have been covered, but were documented by the East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society.

The building was formerly The White Hart Inn, first recorded in 1476 which hosted the Great Bed in 1610. The land was originally owned by The Guild of Corpus Christi and later by the Ware Charity Trustees, who remain the ground landlords. Its use as an inn ceased in the early 19th century, after which it was rebuilt and the roof was slated. The ground floor was subsequently used for shops until the Midland Bank took a lease of the building in 1972.