Summary
House and commercial premises, built in the early C18 with some C20 alterations.
Reasons for Designation
97 High Street, Watford, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for the architectural interest of its front elevation to Watford High Street, which retains C19 margined sash windows and fragments of architectural detailing;
* for the remarkable survival of historic interior features at first and second floor level, in particular the early-C18 plan form, a fine stair and wall panelling.
Historic interest:
* for the contribution this historic commercial building makes to the evolution of Watford High Street.
Group value:
* it forms an important functional group with other listed and unlisted commercial buildings on the High Street, including an early C20 bank at 73 High Street (listed at Grade II).
History
A map of Hertfordshire by John Seller in 1676 shows Watford High Street with buildings fronting the east and west sides of the street, though the scale is too small to identify particular buildings. The first map to show any degree of detail is Dury and Andrews ‘Topographical Map of Hart-fordshire’ in 1766, which shows buildings on the site of where 97 and 99 High Street now stand, and Loates Lane which ran north-east between 99 and 101 High Street. The Tithe map of 1842 shows 97 High Street as a rectangular-plan building with a yard and outbuildings to the rear (north-east), accessed from Loates Lane. 97 High Street was built in the early C18 and is noted in a lease of 1748 as being ‘lately newly erected and built’. A lease of the property to David Downer, stationer, in 1854 documents the ‘Messuage or Tenement shop’ at 97 High Street with a washhouse, coachhouse, stabling outbuildings and garden to the rear. The lease also provides a valuable record of the interior at that time, including fireplaces and fixed furniture on the two upper floors, the ground floor shop and shopfront, and the basement kitchens, scullery and cellars. In addition, the lease described the fixed furniture of the washhouse, which included a furnace and copper, and the stables, which had two stalls, iron mangers and hay racks.
Downer’s son Frederick established a photographic studio in the rear yard in 1861, initially in a tent but later in the stable building which was extended into the yard as a studio. David Downer purchased the freehold in 1878, and the accompanying plan shows the photography studio to the rear leased to his son. A photograph of the street frontage in 1903 records the building as having a moulded brick entablature to the parapet, giant engaged pilasters with Ionic capitals spanning the first and second floors, and a ground floor shopfront (boarded-over) with a door and two steps on the left hand side. These steps are also shown on the Ordnance Survey 1:500 town plan published in 1873. The shopfront of 97 High Street was replaced soon after the 1903 photograph, and alterations at that time included the removal of a ‘south-eastern set of stairs’ and a new stair was introduced on the north-west side of the building to the first floor. The new shopfront, shown in a photograph of 1905, had a central recessed doorway with splayed sides, and large display windows over a plinth. The entablature was removed in 1906, and the Victoria County Record in 1908 documented the building as having ‘good brick pilasters with Ionic capitals, and until recently … a fine moulded brick cornice.’
Plans of around 1923 show proposed alterations to the shopfront, and construction of a covered staircase from the rear yard to the first floor and basement. Historic aerial photographs show the roof had a dormer to the front slope overlooking High Street, but this appears to have been removed in the mid- C20. The rear stair was removed around 1960 when the ground floor shop was extended to the rear. In 1976 two inspectors from the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) recorded: ‘Upper floors said to be inaccessible because stair removed; G/F completely gutted, not a trace of old features.’ A photograph of the building taken in 1980 indicates the shopfront was replaced around 1960, and by 1980 the right Ionic capital had been lost. The building was listed at Grade II in January 1983.
Details
House and commercial premises, built in the early C18 with some C20 alterations.
MATERIALS: The upper floors are constructed of red brick, and the roof has a plain tile covering.
PLAN: The building is terraced, facing south-west to High Street, and curves northwards to the rear.
EXTERIOR: 97 High Street is a three-bay three-and-half storey building with a mid-C20 shopfront over a concealed basement. The hipped roof has a plain tile covering and is hidden from view behind an early-C20 red brick parapet with red brick piers to each side (this replaced a moulded brick entablature in 1906). The walls of the first and second floors are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond. Giant engaged red-brick pilasters span the first and second floors with moulded Ionic capitals; the right capital has been lost. The first and second floors have segmental-headed window openings, containing C19 margined sliding sashes without horns. C19 stone sills and moulded brick aprons conceal the former length of the C18 windows; the first-floor sills are obscured by ground-floor shop signage. The shopfront was replaced and the ground floor extended to the rear (north) around 1960. The rear elevation has a number of blocked window openings; the second floor retains a four-over-four sash window without a sill, its sash box fully exposed and flush with the façade (suggesting early-C18 origins).
INTERIOR: The interior of the ground floor shop was gutted in the C20, but above this much of the early-C18 interior survives. The plan of the interior derives from the C17: the stair is placed centrally between a front (south-west) and rear (north-east) room. The stair originally rose from the basement to the second floor, however the section between the basement and first floor was removed around 1903. The open string stair between the first and second floors rises around an open well with a ramped handrail, sharply cut twisted balusters, two to each tread, and shaped tread ends. A small proportion of balusters have been replaced, mainly those rising from the first floor. The wall panelling of the stairwell mirrors the profile of the stair, rising with a swan neck at each turn. The south-east wall of the stairwell has a round-arched niche or blocked window opening with painted stone voussoirs, over which is a lead-lined octagonal rooflight (blocked).
The front rooms on the first and second floors each retain early-C18 panelling, largely original with some minor patching. The windows in the front rooms have deep reveals, and the high position of the C19 margined windows indicates the former length of the early-C18 windows. Fireplaces are set in the north-east corners of the rooms, as was characteristic of the late C17 and early C18. The front room on the first floor retains its cornice, and its fireplace appears to have been removed. On the left side of the north-east wall an early-C18 panelled door indicates the location of the former stair from the ground floor commercial unit (this stair was removed in 1903). The front room on the second floor retains its original chimneypiece, with a later, C19 grate. The rear room on the second floor retains a plain C19 fireplace, and a cupboard to the left of the fireplace retains two doors and shelves (mentioned in the 1854 lease). On the second floor landing a boarded partition screens a winder stair to two attic rooms, which although replastered, retain their original form.
A stair was introduced on the north-west wall in the early C21, linking the ground and first floors, and a ladder provides access to the basement. The front room of the basement retains a kitchen range in its north-east corner, in-built kitchen cupboards on the south-east wall and a number of arched brick niches. A steel beam over this kitchen probably dates from the 1903 alterations.
