Widfordbury Farm and Widfordbury House on West of Churchyard is a Grade II listed building in the East Hertfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 4 December 1951. House. 3 related planning applications.

Widfordbury Farm and Widfordbury House on West of Churchyard

WRENN ID
dusted-chalk-winter
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
East Hertfordshire
Constituency
Hertford and Stortford MP: Josh Dean (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
4 December 1951
Type
House
Address
Widfordbury Farm and Widfordbury House on West of Churchyard, Ware Road, SG12 8RL
OS grid reference
TL 412 158
Coordinates
51.82321, 0.04856
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: EPC · related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Widfordbury Farm and Widfordbury House is a house, now divided into two residences, dating from the 17th century or earlier. It features a timber-framed structure with roughcast and brick casing on the lower floor at the front, topped with steep old red tiled gabled roofs. The building is L-shaped, two storeys high with a cellar, and includes a single-storey kitchen extension from the 18th or 19th century on the west side.

The main range, known as Widfordbury Farm, runs east-west and faces south, with four windows that have modern casements, a two-storey canted bay, and a tile-hung apron. The east wing, referred to as Widfordbury House, is taller, has a hipped roof at the north end, and features early 19th-century flush sash windows with 8/8 panes on the south and west sides. It also has a moulded cusped bargeboard and a four-panelled door with a moulded architrave and flat hood supported by shaped brackets, along with a probable jetty on the south end underbuilt in colourwash brick. A large projecting side chimney is present on the east wing, and there is a modern panelled door centrally located under a flat hood.

The rear of the main block includes a two-storey projecting brick gable with a chimney and floorband, as well as a lean-to extension featuring a very tall buttress chimney. An old doorway in the east wall of the east wing at cellar level was reported by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in 1911.

Historically, Widfordbury served as the manorial centre owned by Bermondsey Abbey until the Dissolution and was leased to the Adam family in 1548 as a farm. It is an important historic timber-framed house at the manorial centre, forming part of a picturesque group with its farm buildings and the church in this area of the Conservation Area. It is also a significant landscape feature when viewed across the Ash Valley from the north.

Local climate

Widfordbury Farm and Widfordbury House on West of Churchyard sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 700 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 90% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 88% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 52% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Full EPC report — heating system, energy costs, size, glazing, construction etc.
  • No sale records on file
  • Related listed building consents — 3 applications
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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