Former Green Dragon Hotel Including Wall And Pier To Right

HERTFORD

TL3212NE MAIDENHEAD STREET 817-1/17/109 (South side) Nos.31 AND 33 Former Green Dragon Hotel including wall and pier to right

GV II

Hotel, now shops with offices above. 1903 (date on corner pediment), with later alterations. Architect James Farley, contractor George Wiggs of Watford. Orange brick with orange terracotta dressings and details, machine tiled roofs, with brick slab stacks and multiple square terracotta pots. Free Jacobean style. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and attics. Multiple light moulded terracotta mullion and transom windows on first and second floors, and in attic dormers, with inserted metal casements and plain glazing, with terracotta hoods, dripmoulds, quoins and moulded panelled spandrels above continuous terracotta facia and cornice above ground floor shops. Brick pilasters break frontage and frame Dutch gabled dormers with cornelled pinnacles. Pilasters to curved corner bay supported at first-floor level on terracotta corbels with moulded Ionic volutes and shields. Corner curved ornamental pediment all in terracotta with moulded scrolls, festoons and swags, with shield bearing date '1903' and peacock tail finial. Ground floor facade to Maidenhead Street altered in 1952 and converted to shops. The right-hand bay and corner unit returning along The Wash retain their glazed blue-green moulded faience plinth and dado, with bowed coupled Ionic pilasters above, and low canted faience stallrisers. A glazed tile panel in Art Nouveau style flanks the shop entrance in the right-hand bay. Moulded hardwood shop windows with plate glass, curved around corner bay, with square pane upper lights. Rear elevation of building plain orange brick with sash windows, utilitarian in character. INTERIOR: the major staircase running from ground to second floor has square column balusters and a moulded handrail. All public room interiors altered when building converted. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the right of the Maidenhead Street frontage is an attached orange brick boundary wall with moulded terracotta band and copings, terminating in a square pier with a moulded terracotta cap. HISTORICAL NOTE: this is the site of an early inn dating from the 16th century, or before. In the early 19th century the

"Green Dragon Club", a Friendly Society met at the inn. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Hertfordshire: Harmondsworth: 1977-: 189; Green L: Hertford's Past in pictures: Ware: 1993-: 115).

Listing NGR: TL3257012596