Goldings Hertford, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

HERTFORD

TL3114SW NORTH ROAD, Goldings 817-1/5/306 (West side) 08/04/68 Goldings including retaining walls and steps to forecourt and terrace

GV II*

Large country house, subsequently orphanage, now County Council offices. 1871-77, architect George Devey, with C20 alterations and extensions. MATERIALS: red brick, English bond, with diaper patterns in blue headers, above a coursed rubble stone base, and with ashlar dressings and stone mullioned windows; Welsh slated roofs with multiple stone-coped parapeted gables, numerous multiple shafted moulded brick chimneystacks with moulded bands and oversailing caps. STYLE: Free Elizabethan. PLAN: irregular plan, informally divided into projecting and receding bays, with central entrance hall on north-west side, and principal reception rooms opening off and inner hall, the Saloon, and facing the gardens on the south-west and south-east fronts; forecourt approached through archway, raised terraces on garden fronts. Long, irregular service wing runs northwards at an angle to the main house. EXTERIOR: 3 and 4 storeys with attics. Entrance front of 6 irregular bays, each marked by a gable on the roofline, with varied widths and profiles, Dutch gables in bays 1 and 4 from left, numerous stone mullioned windows with dripmoulds above, and iron casement sub frames. Large projecting stone mullion and transom bay window, with coursed rubble base, at ground-floor level to billiard room, to right, spread across bays 2 and 3, large flush-set mullion and transom window to former Dining Room. In bay 5 to right of entrance, the first floor has a storey height mullion and transom window, with a narrow semicircular bay window at right, lighting the main staircase and landing. Bay 6 at right has a broad entrance chimneybreast to the Library, rising with offsets on left to a 3 flue chimney to-floor level. Brickwork enriched with diaper patterns across whole elevation. Entrance in bay 4 has a 4-light window on second floor, above a canted 3-light mullion and transom bay, with an elaborate carved stone strapwork balustrade above, and a carved stone panel in spandrel below. Porch on ground floor has twin leaf hardwood panelled doors with moulded stiles and muntins and ogee traceried heads. This is set within a stone Tudor arch surround with moulded jambs and intrados, projecting keyblock and carved spandrels with

shields and fern leaves; outer surround with attached Ionic columns raised on tall plinths with entablature and pulvinated frieze. Panel above door records that the William Baker Technical School (run by Dr Barnado's Homes) was opened on 15 November 1922 by HRH Prince of Wales. South-east principal garden front has 5 bays, projecting wings at left and right with Dutch gables framing 3 recessed bays with plain gables. 3- and 4-light attics windows, projecting bay windows with multi-light mullion and transom windows, 2 storeys, rectangular left-hand bay 1, canted in bays 3 and 4, semicircular in Bay 5 at right. Garden entrance in Bay 2, a recessed glazed hardwood traceried screen with twin leaf half-glazed doors, with a broad stone Tudor arch with moulded jambs and intrados, with carved spandrels below a projecting dripmould. Above is a pierced strapwork carved stone balcony with a moulded cap, with a moulded and traceried oak arcade with a low copper roof above. South-west elevation has large multi-light mullion and transom windows across most of the ground floor in projecting polygonal and rectangular bays, with, at left, a link to the single storey conservatory which has continuous stone mullioned windows, a brick parapet and Welsh slated roof, with the gable end facing the entrance forecourt having an open semicircular pediment with curved swept links to flanking pinnacles, and a large mullion and transom window. The service wing runs northwards from the right-hand end of the south-east garden front, and is treated as a part of the overall compositi