Thunder Hall And Boundary Wall To Wadesmill Road

Thunder Hall and Boundary Wall to Wadesmill Road, Ware

House, now subdivided into flats. The building comprises a late 17th-century south block extended in the 18th century, with further alterations and extensions in the 19th century. It was converted to flats in 1972. The 1850–52 remodelling was designed by architect George Godwin.

The south block dates from the late 17th century. It is faced in stucco over brick with an old tiled roof, featuring moulded parapeted gable ends and a central attic with a parapeted gable containing one sash window with glazing bars beneath a moulded stucco dripmould. A red brick chimneystack with four clustered octagonal shafts, connected by an oversailing cap, rises from this section. The south elevation has two storeys and attics, with a central projection containing 1:1:1 sash windows with glazing bars under dripmoulds.

The north wing dates from the 18th century and was altered in the mid-19th century. It is constructed in red brick with an old tiled roof with lead hips. The north elevation features two tall sash windows on the first floor with glazing bars under rubbed flat arches, a dentil cornice, a lean-to at the left, and French casement windows at the right beneath a segmental arch on the ground floor.

The mid-19th-century remodelling added rendered pinnacles with corbelled bases and moulded ogee caps to the north elevation, mullioned casement windows with stucco dripmoulds and moulded heads on the ground floor and above the first floor windows of the east elevation, and a moulded band at first floor cill level.

Architect John Snellgrove Associates oversaw the 1972 conversion to flats. George Godwin's 1850–52 work included single-storey stucco-faced cloisters to the south and east, featuring Tudor arches with dripmoulds, buttresses, and a panelled parapet with cusped quatrefoil ornament. The cloisters have arched two-light windows on the south side and lead to a tall carriageway arch with twin-leaf panelled doors beneath a Tudor arch with dripmould above.

The interior retains significant features. A half-glazed entrance door in a Tudor arch opens from the north of the cloister into the entrance hall, which has 19th-century panelling. A 19th-century bracket stair with moulded handrail ascends to the first floor, where it continues as a late 17th-century close string open well newel staircase with bobbin balusters and moulded handrail, rising to the second floor attics. A fireplace in the south-east room on the ground floor contains a mid-19th-century arched fireplace with a marble tablet inscribed "This marble from the room in which the Emperor Napoleon died was brought from St Helena by Capt. Amb. Fred. Proctor, AD 1833".

The grounds and land to the north were significantly altered by modern residential development of Thundercourt in the early 1970s, which extinguished the original road access from The Bourne. The boundary wall to Wadesmill Road is partly constructed in red and yellow Hitch patent brickwork with Hitch coping bricks.