The Albion Public House

The Albion Public House is a timber-framed building, dating to the 15th century, with alterations made in the 17th and early 20th centuries, located in Ware. It now serves as a public house with living accommodation above. The ground floor is built of brick, while the first floor is timber-framed and plastered, with exposed studs and bracing and pebbledashed infilling. No. 12 has a continuous jetty with exposed beam ends, while No. 14 has a jetty carried on brackets and concealed beam ends with pebbledashed plastering. The roof is tiled with a cruciform red brick chimneystack with an oversailing course on the left and a smaller stack on the right.

The building is two storeys, comprising a two-bay structure with upper rooms now ceiled (in No. 12) and a cross-wing (formerly No. 14). The first floor features two-light wood casements with leaded lattice glazing in projecting wood surrounds. The ground floor has recessed three-light wood casements with leaded lattice glazing, a recessed central entrance door, and a recessed secondary entrance and boarded-over shop window in No. 14. A carriageway on the left is part of the adjacent No. 16. A gabled rear projection from No. 14 has an old tiled roof, two storeys, stuccoed timber framing, and a brick underbuilding, with a modern flat-roofed single-story rear extension.

The ground floor interior of No. 12 displays exposed ceiling beams with mortices indicating former internal partitions in the right-hand (south) bay. No. 14 is used as a store and is separated from the left-hand (north) end, containing a chimneystack and stair to the first floor. The first-floor central room reveals exposed studwork with downward curved bracing, along with a freestanding braced tie beam. The roof structure is a two-bay crown post design, incorporating unmoulded crown studs built into partitions, fore and aft bracing to the collar purlin, and halved and pegged rafters which were later reinforced with side purlins. A roof extension covers No. 14, likely added in the 17th century, but with lower, cut rafters suggesting a former gabled roof at a right angle to the main structure. There is no evidence of smoke blackening in the roof, indicating the building was unheated until the main 17th-century chimneystack was installed. The Albion was first documented as an ale house in 1845, and by 1866 it had a skittle alley in the adjoining carriageway.