The Priory (Ware Town Council Offices And Community Centre)

A medieval Franciscan friary, later converted to a private house and then to local government offices, now serving as Ware Town Council Offices, Community Centre and restaurant. The core fabric dates from the 14th century and mid to late 15th century. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, the building became a private house in 1544. It underwent significant alterations in the mid-18th century, was substantially rebuilt after 1849 by architect George Godwin, and received further extensions in the late 19th century. The building was converted to offices for the former Ware Urban District Council in the 1920s and restored as local Council Offices and Community Centre in 1993–94 by Donald Insall and Associates, Architects.

Materials and Construction

The structure is built of chalk blocks, now covered with stucco, with sections of flint rubble with ashlar quoins. The roofs are gabled and hipped, covered with old tiles on the northern and eastern slopes and machine tiles on the southern slopes. Brick chimneystacks date from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Plan and Exterior

The surviving complex comprises several buildings from the original Ware Friary: the southern range, the frater (refectory) behind and over the cloister forming the east wing, and the west or 'guestern' wing above and extending west of the cloister. The building stands two storeys high with attics, featuring a north-facing gable and a set-back left-hand range creating an L-plan, with an attached right-hand range extending in line with the north front.

Archaeological investigation by the Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust during the 1993–94 building operations confirmed that the west wing was built first, with surviving fabric consistent with the founding date of 1338. The frater and cloister were subsequently built against the west wing, requiring the removal of a projecting oriel on the first floor of its east front. This building phase appears to date from the mid-15th century.

North and East Elevations

The first floor of the left-hand (east) range has six sash windows with glazing bars recessed in reveals. The ground floor displays five segmental-headed late 15th-century windows; the second from the right is blocked, flanked by two partly blocked windows. These windows mark the north arcade of the cloisters, with deep hollow-moulded jambs and extrados both inside and out. Each is triple-light with moulded mullions and cusped trefoil lancet heads. A similar window on the left-hand east elevation is a copy made by Godwin around 1850, while another on the north wing immediately right of the entrance was opened up after 1867. Two further arched openings without tracery remain within the entrance hall in the south-west corner of the cloister. Two attic dormers with sashes sit under hipped old-tiled roofs.

The left-hand (east) elevation of the central range has one first-floor sash window and one dormer with sashes under a hipped old-tiled roof. An entrance porch in the re-entrant angle, designed by Godwin around 1850, is single storey with a lead flat roof and stucco facing. It reproduces hollow and roll moulding from the cloister windows and incorporates a reset early 17th-century door with studded nails, raised mouldings and two central raised panels. Raised lancet windows with leaded central lights flank the doorway on both sides.

The central projecting gable has two recessed sash windows with glazing bars on the first floor (featuring heavy mid-18th-century quadrant bars), three recessed sash windows with glazing bars on the ground floor, and one nearly flush-set attic sash window with glazing bars.

West Wing

The right-hand (west) wing is stucco-faced. The first floor has three widely spaced two-light windows with moulded mullions and cusped trefoil heads, with moulded jambs and moulded flat heads beneath projecting dripmoulds. The centre and right-hand windows appear to be heavily restored 15th-century originals, while the left-hand window is a copy by Godwin. The ground floor has five irregularly spaced windows of similar type. The left-hand window sits immediately below the sill of the first-floor window, while the remainder are set lower and are longer than those on the first floor. The second and third from the left may retain some 15th-century fabric; the remainder are copies by Godwin. All windows contain recessed wooden casements with glazing bars and pointed heads. Below the ground floor left-hand window is a cusped quatrefoil opening with an iron grille, dating from the 15th century and made of chalk, said to be an alms window. Angle buttresses stand at the west end of the range.

South Elevation

The south elevation, largely stucco-covered and facing towards the river, has the left-hand (west) wing set back. The former walled kitchen yard was cleared and rebuilt in 1993–94 with a single-storey kitchen suite and a large projecting steel-framed conservatory forming a restaurant. The first floor has three restored two-light 15th-century windows with moulded jambs and heads, mullions and trefoil cusped heads under projecting moulded dripmoulds. A projecting buttress with an offset cap stands between the second and third windows. The ground floor shows 19th and 20th-century alterations with a central pointed-arched doorway.

The central gable's first floor has three recessed sash windows with glazing bars, and the attic has flush-set sash windows with exposed boxes. The ground floor has a four-light mullion and transom central casement window in an earlier opening with splayed reveals to the interior, and one recessed sash window with glazing bars.

The right-hand (east) wing's first floor has three widely spaced recessed sash windows with glazing bars. The ground floor has a garden entrance at the left: a recessed semi-circular half-glazed late 18th-century door with glazing bars and 'Gothick' pointed heads, with an original hinged shutter internally. There are two mid-19th-century French windows with divided glazing and twin fanlights above the transom. At the right is a restored 15th-century window with two lights beneath a flat projecting dripmould head. Projecting buttresses with two offsets stand at the left-hand adjoining gable and to the right of the garden door, along with the vestige of a large projecting chimney (demolished by Godwin around 1850) with four splayed offsets.

South-East Wing

The right-hand two-storey southward projection was remodelled in 1892. A projecting five-sided corner oriel window at first floor sits on a moulded stone corbel with a projecting bold plastered cove, plastered spandrel with incised ornament and date, casement window with glazing bars and transom, incised ornament above the head with initials 'RW' (Robert Walters, owner), and a polygonal tiled roof above. The first floor is plastered, pebbledashed and colourwashed. The ground floor has flint rubble facing with ashlar quoins, plinth, window surrounds and first-floor band.

At the extreme right is the billiard room built in 1892 for Robert Walters. Single storey, it features projecting multi-light mullioned bay windows, an old-tiled roof with bonnet hips, and a timber glazed central lantern rooflight. An east projecting tile-roofed porch was added in 1994.

Interior

The entrance hall contains the south-west corner of the cloisters with two segmental-arched openings with deep hollow mouldings meeting on a corner pier. At the rear of the pier is a 14th-century three-centred arch with a chamfered head supported on a carved grotesque and a moulded corbel. The door to the store room to the south is set within a chamfered pointed arch in chalk masonry.

To the left of the entrance hall, the large meeting room (the Main Hall) has the range of partly blocked mullioned windows of the cloisters with 19th-century painted and stained glass in lead cames. Initials 'HG' in a roundel in the head of the second window from the left indicate Martin Hadsley Gosselin, who restored The Priory from 1850. The long beam in the ceiling reveals the position of the inner wall of the cloister, part of which survived until the early 20th century and was removed by Ware Urban District Council after 1920. During the 1993–94 restoration, traces of a trompe l'oeil Gothic decorative scheme were found on the north and west walls and have been stabilised and left exposed. A fragment of 15th-century painting has been exposed in the south window embrasure.

To the south of the entrance hall is the principal stair, dating from the mid-18th century, fitted alongside a semi-basement used as a wine cellar in the 19th century. The stair is dogleg in plan, rising between walls to the first half-landing, thereafter following an open string pattern with brackets and moulded tread nosings and returns, column-on-vase balusters, and ramped moulded handrails. On the first-floor landing, a stone window head above the later sash window was exposed during the building work of 1993–94.

To the right of the entrance hall is the principal room of the west wing, used as the dining room of the house in the 18th century and by Ware Urban District Council as a Council Chamber from 1920–1974. It has a large triple-light 15th-century window restored in the early 20th century and three sash windows with shutters. 18th-century panelling is raised and fielded with a moulded dado rail and heavy moulded wood cornice. The chimney-piece has a shouldered architrave fire surround, moulded shelf, and an overmantel flanked by fluted Tuscan columns with a fluted fascia above and modillion cornice. The ceiling features 19th-century octagonal panels defined by moulded frames.

The adjoining room, formerly the Mayor's Parlour, has vernacular 18th-century panelling brought in by Godwin around 1850 from a Somerset church. A built-in safe by Charles Wells, Ware, is dated 1849. The remainder of the west wing was subdivided by Godwin into service rooms. The central wall subdividing this wing is of medieval origin and contains a pointed arched doorway with plain chamfered jamb and arch, plastered and forming a cupboard recess. This appears to have been rebuilt by Godwin from fabric demolished elsewhere. In the room used as a ladies' water closet before 1974, there was a stone tablet inscribed 'The temple of ease, 1756'. Early 19th-century engravings record that this part of the building was brought under a lean-to catslide roof, and the position of the main water closet was shown to be in this vicinity on the 1867 sale plans. The tablet was reset in the entrance to the conservatory restaurant in 1994.

On the first floor, several rooms in the west wing retain heavy moulded 18th-century cornices. Two rooms in the east wing (now Greyfriars Suite) contain 17th-century panelling, part reset due to the subsequent creation of the corridor to the south. The Ware Town Council Chamber, the principal room in the centre facing south, has an early to mid-19th-century cornice with a modelled acanthus frieze and a guilloche ceiling border.

West Wing Upper Floors

On the first floor of the west wing, the two eastern bays remained open as a 'guestern hall' or dorter (dormitory) until 1849, shortly after which it was subdivided by Godwin to form bedrooms with servants' attic rooms above. It had exposed tie-beams and late 14th to early 15th-century octagonal crown posts with moulded bases and caps, with fore and aft bracing to a central collar purlin, lateral collar bracing, and an exposed timber waggon roof with scissor-trussed rafters above. The mid-19th-century alterations removed one crown post and part (in the western attic) of another, but the first (east) post remained exposed in the east attic with part of its tie-beam. The next post westwards also remained but is plain in section, suggesting the existence of a partition, possibly forming a solar. The waggon roof was plastered over, but the scissor-trussed rafters and collars remained with some evidence of smoke-blackening. The crown post in the west end with its downward curved bracing appeared to survive, as indicated prior to 1993–94 by pattern staining of the stucco of the gable end.

In the 1993–94 restoration, the two-room pattern of the first floor of the west (guestern) wing was reinstated. The west room (Clare Room) had been ceiled in the 17th century at tie-beam level, and the attic above, where the crown post structure had already been removed, was sealed off. The Hadsley Room was completely reinstated as a two-bay open upper hall with a free-standing crown post on the central tie beam, and the crown post structure of each end was restored. The central crown post is octagonal with a moulded base and cap, with four-way curved bracing. The ceiling above is of a polygonal waggon profile following the scissor rafters of the roof structure.

The roof over the central wing retains the scissor-trusses over the north end, but at the south has been replaced by 17th-century carpentry. In the east wing, creation of the attics (now Bowsher Suite) entailed removal of the crown post structures, but the collar purlin remains exposed at the west end with a filled mortice for the end bracing, and a portion of the original east gable end of the roof with close studding and downward curved bracing. The scissor-trussed rafters survive above the plastered attic ceilings.

Historical Background

Ware Priory is an 18th-century misnomer for the Franciscan house given to Friars Minor of Ware by Thomas, Lord Wake of Liddell in 1338. The situation of Ware on the historic Ermine Street brought travellers and mendicant friars seeking lodgings. The complex probably included a Friary church located to the north of the cloister, and excavations for drain trenches in 1954 and 1977 revealed the remains of a large stone building, confirmed during further excavations in 1993–94. The Duke of York, father of Edward IV and Richard III, lodged in the Friary after the Battle of St Albans in 1455.

In 1544 the Friary was sold to Robert Byrche and converted to a private house. During the Commonwealth, the building was leased to Sir Richard Fanshawe, Secretary of War to the Prince of Wales, later Charles II. In 1685 the house was sold to Robert Hadsley of Great Munden, in whose family it remained until 1868. Probably between 1740 and 1765, during the tenure of his son, also Robert Hadsley, the 18th-century alterations including the staircase, panelling and installation of sash windows were carried out.

In 1847 ownership passed to Martin Hadsley Gosselin, who consulted the architect George Godwin, editor of The Builder, who prepared plans for alterations involving the reinstatement of the cloisters as a long gallery and the conversion of the west wing to a service wing. These plans were only partly implemented, and the alterations are described above. In 1892 Robert Walters added the billiards room and remodelled the south-east wing.

In 1913, after his death, the building was acquired by Mrs Elizabeth Anne Croft of Fanhams Hall outside Ware. Mrs Croft was the only child of Ware's richest maltster, Henry Page. During the First World War, The Priory was used as a convalescent hospital. In 1920 Mrs Croft leased the building and grounds to Ware Urban District Council for 999 years at three shillings (15 pence) per annum. The Council used the building as its offices until 1974, when it passed to the East Hertfordshire District Council, the successor authority, to be returned to the Ware Town Council in 1979 to be administered by the Ware Priory Trustees, who commenced restoration in 1993–94.

Setting

The setting of The Priory includes a reach of the River Lea and grounds laid out in the picturesque Loudon style in the early 19th century. Prior to the 1950s, when Ware Urban District Council opened out the frontage to High Street, the main entrance was from Priory Street, where a boundary wall with a wide Tudor arch housed substantial studded timber carriage and pedestrian gates. These were removed for storage and subsequently disappeared. Property owned as ancillary to The Priory included The Lodge at Number 89 High Street and a Gardener's cottage, now Number 37 Priory Street, with a barn behind.