The Royal Oak Inn

The Royal Oak Inn is a public house, originally a house, located on London Road in Ware. It dates from the 17th century, with alterations from the 18th century and extensions from the 19th and 20th centuries. The building features a timber-framed and plastered structure with old tiled roofs, topped by a tall central colourwashed brick chimneystack with six pots. The inn has a two-storey centre with a cornice and three flush sash windows with exposed boxes and glazing bars on the first floor. The ground floor has a long Neo-Georgian window with a continuous fascia that forms a cornice over a recessed glazed entrance door located at the right centre.

Inside, the layout consists of one small room and one large room, separated by substantial back-to-back red brick fireplaces in English bond. There are single-storey wings, with the left wing dating from the 19th century and featuring a Welsh slated roof and a pierced, fretted barge board on the left-hand gable. The right wing is a 20th-century addition made of yellow brick with an old tiled roof. At the rear, there are two outshoots: a two-storey plastered structure with an old tiled roof on the left and a single-storey 18th-century outshoot on the right, which has a hipped old tiled roof and a 19th-century chimney made of yellow stock bricks, featuring a tall zigzag extension.