Amwell House, Hertford Regional College

Amwell House, Hertford Regional College, Ware

A substantial house now part of Hertford Regional College, Amwell House dates from the early 18th century and was extended around 1740, with further building in the late 18th century. The building was remodelled in the late 19th century and altered in 1973 when its wings were truncated by 15 feet to accommodate road widening.

The house is constructed in red and plum coloured brick with cherry red dressings, laid in Flemish Bond. It features a Welsh slate gabled roof with hipped Welsh slate roofs, red half-round ridge tiles over the hips and ridges, and moulded brick cornicing above windows. The eaves cornice combines moulded brick and wood, with stone parapet dressings to the gable ends and low brick chimneystacks at the ends.

The building plan is H-shaped, with a central block arranged as a single pile with twin projecting wings, creating a forecourt. The north elevation faces the road and comprises a centre section of three storeys above basement with attics, five bays wide, flanked by two-storey projecting wings. The first and second floors have five nearly flush-set sash windows. The ground floor contains four nearly flush-set sash windows with glazing bars, exposed boxes and moulded architraves, set beneath red rubbed flat arches. A moulded plat band marks the first-floor level.

The central projecting porch was formed by moving the original doorcase outward in the late 19th century. It features an entablature with pulvinated frieze, dentil and modillion cornice, a modillion pediment, and attached Roman Ionic columns flanking an arched opening with moulded imposts and archivolt. The arch contains an eight-fielded panelled door with fanlight displaying scrollwork and a single recessed sash window. Tuscan columns flank the ground floor and Tuscan pilasters the first floor. Stone bands mark the cill levels, with a modillion cornice above the first-floor windows and projecting sprocketed eaves.

The south elevation facing the garden displays five bays across the three-storey centre with attics above basement. A small central attic dormer rises above an early 20th-century fire escape. The ground and first floors have three nearly flush-set sash windows (one to the right and two to the left of centre), while the second floor has two nearly flush-set sash windows with the left-hand window blocked. Plat bands mark the first and second-floor levels. A central wooden doorcase with Tuscan pillars stands before Tuscan pilaster responds carrying entablatures with stepped fascia, plain frieze and moulding below the cornice. An open moulded pediment crowns the composition. The recessed half-glazed door has a pilaster surround, blank fanlight and semicircular moulded archivolt with keystone.

Two-storey links connect to the slightly projecting two-storey wings. The right-hand wing has a first-floor 18th-century flush-set sash window with glazing bars in an architrave surround topped by a pediment. The ground floor displays a large 19th-century canted brick bay window with moulded modillion cornice and a 20th-century balcony railing above, flanked by three pairs of plain glazed mullion and transom French windows. The left-hand wing similarly has a pedimented sash window on the first floor and a mid-19th-century canted wooden bay window on the ground floor above a brick spandrel, with sash windows featuring glazing bars in architrave surrounds, moulded cornices with modillions, and lead roofs with wooden roll hips.

The interior contains significant 18th and 19th-century features. The ground-floor hall retains plain 18th-century panelling with moulded dado rail and moulded archivolts, opening into the former dining room to form a larger entrance hall. A 19th-century wood and marble fire surround displays egg and dart moulded architrave and dentil cornice. The former parlour to the right of the entrance possesses a moulded cornice and 19th-century marble fire surround with Ionic columns. The former sitting room in the west wing retains 18th-century panelling with moulded dado and a 19th-century moulded cornice. A late 19th-century fireplace features wooden consoles, egg and dart moulding, dentil cornice and an overmantel with recessed panel, Tuscan pilasters, entablatures and a projecting central tablet with pediment above. Doorcases throughout have moulded architraves with six-panelled doors featuring fielded and raised panels, with late 19th-century pediments added above. The former library, occupying the south room of the west wing, was truncated in 1973 but retains an elaborate 19th-century plaster modillion cornice, 19th-century moulded and patterned wooden dado, panelled shutters and a panelled archivolt to a relocated 18th-century Venetian window. The east wing formerly housed servants' hall and office spaces.

A fine 18th-century china cabinet, built against the north wall of the east wing, features a semicircular top with twin glazed doors whose glazing bars form octagonal subdivisions with pointed heads. The main staircase was relocated from the central hall to the west wing in the late 18th century and rebuilt in the late 19th century, rising in dog-leg plan to the first floor with close string patterning, Tuscan column newels and balusters of iron-twist columns above vases, finished with ramped moulded hardwood handrails. This staircase follows the style of the original 18th-century central staircase, which rises from the first floor in dog-leg plan to the second floor and attics, similarly featuring close string patterning with custom column newels, iron-twist column balusters above squat vases, moulded strings and caps, and moulded ramped handrail extending to the half-landing only.

The half-landing is distinguished by the 'Gilpin Window', a late 19th-century work in the style of Morris and Company, comprising painted and stained glass with floral-motif quarries and circular flower heads joined by lead cames, together with two painted panels based on Randolph Caldecott's illustrations to Cowper's poem. The first-floor central range principal rooms retain moulded cornices, partial panelling and 18th-century fire surrounds of various patterns with moulded architraves and shelves supported on moulded cornices with dentils. The half-landing to the attics contains a servants' water closet with a long hopper pan of circa 1870. The original two attics have been subdivided into four.

Amwell House is identified with the residence of John Scott (1730–83), the Quaker poet, from around 1750 until his death. His father, Samuel Scott, moved to Amwell in 1740 and may have built the west wing. Scott's garden and grotto attracted many eminent visitors, and he reportedly funded improvements to the Amwell to Hertford Road passing the house, which later came under the Cheshunt Turnpike Trust. After Scott's death, his daughter remained in the house until 1863. The Tite family subsequently acquired it and embellished the interior in the late 19th century. In 1906 the house became Ware Grammar School for Girls, converted in 1964 to Ware College of Further Education, now Hertford Regional College. The external setting changed radically during the 20th century, with stables and outbuildings to the west demolished during the 1960s to accommodate extensive college construction in the gardens. A short length of attached garden wall beyond the dining room in the south-east corner employs Hitch patent brickwork. The north elevation forms a focal point along Amwell End.