Thames Triburary River Stort - Sawbridgeworth

Thames Tributary River Stort and Stort Navigation
The Stort flows south towards the River Lea
Sawbridgeworth Brook flows south east towards the River Stort

Post to the south Pishiobury

Bell Street

Once called Cock Street
3 Gowan Gallery
4 The Elms Health Centre. 18^th house, timber framed and plastered. It has a Sun fire mark no. 169528 and pargetting.  There are walls and outbuildings and an 18th wrought iron garden gate.
7 The Village Pharmacy. 17^th plastered house with shop fronts
9 The Chantry. 17th timber framed plastered house. 1810-20 organ room. Cast iron pump with handle, at rear. Some stone in the rockery is said to be from the 19th restoration of the church.
13–15 two 18^th red brick houses with modern shop front
17 Tall plastered 17^th house, timber framed with 19^th shop front. Adjoining it is a weather boarded stable block
18 Timber framed 19^th building in whitewashed brick with modern shop front
20–22 18th timber framed plastered house
21-23 15^th timber framed hall-house with a 17^th extension. Some pargetting at the rear.
24 Timber framed plastered 18^th house with 19^th shop front.  Carriageway through to a rear yard.
25 16th house timber framed with weather boarded ground floor
26 18^th house refronted early in the 19th.
27 16^th plastered timber framed house with a modern shop windows.
28-30 18^th house with later brick front. Timber framed stuccoed assembly room 18^th over a coach house. Inside is a decorated room with a fancy fireplace and a frieze with nymphs in Arcadian scene with altar.
29 19^th red brick house colour washed with modern shop front.
31–33 17^th timber framed and plastered building with 19^th shop front
36 16^th. Timber framed building with plastered jettied end
38 The Old Bell 16^th house adapted, in 17^th around a rear courtyard. Timber framed and plastered with some Weatherboarding. At the front is pargetting in small panels .There is an outbuilding at the back with a timber framed and weather boarded pigeon-loft. It is a former coaching inn. 18^th Cast iron pump with wrought iron handle.
40, 42, 44 17^th house with three rooms in a line, timber framed house
46 16^th Timber framed and plastered house with jetty. Modern shop window
Sayesbury Manor, council offices. Built 1780, or maybe an earlier house remodelled. Later extensions. Called Roselands in the 19^th then Hatters Croft in 1902 and Sayesbury Manor in 1939

Church Street
1–3 16^th commercial building with a single large room on the first floor. Later altered for domestic use. Timber framed and plastered.
2 15th,16^th house Plastered and timber framed
5 Fire Station. Opened in 1906 with a bell tower and an external iron staircase which led to Council Offices. Later extensions for war time use including a hose tower at the rear. The bell was used into the 1940s and is preserved in the new fire station.
8 18th Timber framed corner house.
Great St Mary's Church. Not clear why it is called ‘Great’ St.Mary’s. It is basically a 13^th church built of flint rubble with flint facing with many alterations and additions but pudding stone in the base of the tower may indicate an older origin. It has a square tower with crenellated parapet with octagonal Hertfordshire Spike, with a ball and weather vane. There are eight bells, which are regularly rung.  The main door is oak, probably grown locally in Hatfield Forest with an iron key a foot long. The church includes many art works - a modern statue of Christ, by John Mills dates from 2000.  There are also many important monuments and brasses.

Cricket field
Chestnut Trees around the perimeter of the field

Fair Green
The Green is where a twice yearly fair was held
1-2 Semi-detached houses from the 18^th Timber framed and weather boarded
3 corner house in yellow brick
Fair Green Lodge. 17^th house Timber framed and plastered. Ornamental oak gate with wrought iron side panels
The Old Manse. 18^th plastered house which, in the 19^th, was the manse for the Congregational Church.

Knight Street
4 Linden House. 19^th building in front of a 17^th building and modernised in the 19^th. Timber framed, plastered and stuccoed. Pump on external wall. Brick storage area behinds a central archway. Gate piers flanking stone steps with wrought iron foot scrapers on semi-circular stone bases. Previously called The Limes
11 The Red House. House of 1700 with 19^th extensions in red brick. 19th single storey coach-house
14, 16, 18 16^th house timber framed and plastered
17 17th house – 1725 is carved inside. Timber framed
19 Regency house, timber framed with stucco made to look like ashlar. At the side is a billiard room. In the 19^th this was called Hillfield House and later Knights Hill.
22–24. 17^th or older building with a timber frame plastered
26 The Queen's Head Pub. 19^th Stuccoed brick house built as a pub
30-32 17th building with brick pebble dashed front and timber framed and weather boarded
33 19th commercial building and house. Some of it is weather boarded with colour washed brick
35–37 this is probably 16th or 17th with another front on Church Street it is Timber framed and plastered with some pargetting
36 17th Timber framed building on a rendered brick base. Some weatherboarding and plastered
38 16th Timber frame building
40 16^th house with 18^th brick front but Timber framed and part of a hall house.
42 The Market House. 16th Timber framed building with jetties with carved corner post and dragon.  Smoke blackening in roof suggests that it was the upper bay of a hall open to the roof. In the 19^th there was an octagonal kiln roof in the centre – this partly survives but the kiln has been replaced. It is thought that this cannot have been the original market house. Converted to a pub.
Fawbert and Barnard Infant School. The school was set up by the Fawbert & Barnard Foundation in the 1840s using money left by George Fawbert a maltster of Waltham Cross, John Barnard was his executor. In 1895 the current building was erected as a school for girls and infants and another for boys.

London Road
This is the London to Newmarket Road, and at one time turnpiked.
Groves House. 17^th house Timber frame and plastered. Next to workshops of coachbuilder Samuel Patmore Groves
28 White Lion. 16^th Timber framed and plastered building with older part on Bell Street. Owned by Greene King brewery.
31–33 The Old Forge 18th with 19th back extension.
33a Carpenters. 17th building altered and extended to the road in the 19th. Timber framed forge at right angles to road covered in brick in 19th. Now a house
35 Sayesbury Cottage. 18th Timber framed and plastered
43 The Clock House. 18^th timber framed house with adjacent weather boarded block and 18^th weather boarded stable block. On the central gable is a clock face and weather vane. Known as Prospect House in the 19^th
37 Hill Cottage timber framed 18^th house
53 Early 18^th plastered house at the junction with Small shop front with green glazed brick surround.
55 The Barbery,19^th building with later extensions. Some walls remain from a 17th pub, the Kings head, since demolished.
62–66 17^th timber framed house
68 17^th outbuilding to 66 converted in 19^th with a timber frame and weather boarded.
91–93 19th red brick house
Congregational Church. Built 1862-3 by Poulton and Woodman, with a schoolroom. Polychrome brick church in “Early English” style. Foundation stone. Bath for adult immersion installed under dais in 1938.
89 Starlings plaster fronted Regency house, timber framed.

Luxford Close
Luxford were local nurserymen who moved their business to this site.  They had specialised in chrysanthemums and had developed a number of varies.  From 1968 they specialised in plants grown under glass and had a large number of greenhouses here selling plants by mail order.

Railway
Loop line refuge, between the Station Yard and bridge at Sheering Mill Road. A signal adjacent to the bridge controlled the loop.
Siding for Walter Lawrence Joinery works. This ran down a centre roadway between the two lines of their factory buildings

Sheering Mill Lane
The Old Vicarage. Mid 19^th replacement for older vicarage demolished. Red brick house with pattern in black brick.
118 17^th house timber framed and thatched house with basket work and chevron pargetting on the front
120. Small stucco 19^th brick house
129 White brick gothic style house built in 1851 as a National School.
Mill House.  17^th with later extensions and some recent additions like a wrought iron crane, etc.
Walter Lawrence Trading Ltd., had opened here in in 1907, when a joinery works was opened to serve the company’s Waltham Abbey building firm. Close to the railway was a Saw Mill for making planks. Close to the road at the entrance was the Worker's Institute. In 1940 the works was bombed and the wooden buildings nearest the river Stort were gutted- they were rebuilt in brick. Fuselages for Mosquito aircraft were made here for De Havilland. They were built on plywood jigs which were themselves manufactured on site by specialist joiners. Flats and houses built on the site
Lock – with exit, entrance and weir.
Lock cottage. A cottage of 1799 was demolished in 1980. The present building dates from 2000 but retains the original plaster plaque that was over the front door, bearing the red hand of the baronet and Sir George Duckett’s initials still survives
Back River behind the Lock Keeper's cottage is the county boundary – a small tributary to it was a source of watercress
Sheering Mill.  There was a mill at Domesday.  It is not clear where this and it was called Quickbury Mill in 13^th and was owned by Bermondsey Abbey. The mill, closed in 1914, was bought by the Lee Conservancy and demolished in November 1917. The tail race tunnels are still in place.

Springhall Lane
Causewayed enclosure
Scout hut

Stort Navigation
The Stort Navigation is the canalised section of the River Stort running 14 miles from Bishop's Stortford the River Lee Navigation at Rye House. The enabling act was passed in 1766 allowing Charles Dingley, George Jackson (changed his name to Duckett) and William Masterson to build the Navigation and to collect tolls. Thomas Yeoman was appointed engineer in 1766, and it was opened to boats in 1769.  It never did very well and passed through several owners and law suits. It was eventually purchased by the Lee Conservancy for 5/- in 1911.
Up to the early 1950s the Stort was in use for commerce with horse drawn barges

The Forebury
Library. The library is located is located in The Forebury. It is a County Library, owned by Hertfordshire County Council
Bridgefoot House. 16^th brick house rebuilt in 17^th by '1569' found carved on timber
The Memorial Hall is a Charitable Trust which has been the Village Hall since 1950,

The Square
This was once the market place
1 this was Charles Riches ironmonger’s shop and house. 18^th house and 19^th shop.
2 16^th and 18th shop in a building which is timber framed and plastered. It is said to have been a butchers shop since 1838.
Barn Timber framed weather boarded 26^th barn
3–4 16^th house also in Bell Street with eaves over an old inn gallery. The main front is on The Square with a dragon beam at one corner Bell and Feathers Inn became a furniture shop

Sun Street
Housing on an area used by the Lawrence Joinery Works to stack plank from the saw mill whole seasoning.

Vantorts Road
Vantorts Farm – an area now covered in housing built in the late 1960s.
1 & Church House. Weather boarded white painted 17^th building on Church Street with a 19th red brick block on Vantorts Road.  From the 17^th this was a workhouse and a school in the 19th. National (Church) School which in 1947 to become the Secondary Modern School
1, 2, 3 Mann Memorial Almshouses 1901-2 erected for Mrs Mann of Hyde Hall as a memorial to her husband. Gables have plaques with 'HEM' '1899'. Gothic with knapped flint walls. Panel carved with fishing rod, 2 barbed hooks, a float and a fish.
7 King William IV Pub. Timber framed 17^th weather boarded house with tiled and boarded timber framed infill over carriageway which leads to a yard with 18^th & 19th timber framed outbuildings. Recorded as a beer house from 1770-1886.
17 Fair Green House. 16^th hall house. Timber framed and plastered, with a brick 18th front.  In front high gates with moulded capping on the posts
Barn. Timber framed weather boarded 17th building
Sawbridgeworth Masonic Centre
19 Corner House. 18^th house with Royal Exchange fire mark No 245523
21 Vantorts Cottage. 17^th Corner house with pargetting.
23 Spring Cottage. 17^th house with timber framed house refronted in red brick.
Spring Hall. 18^th Remodelled but later. Red brick house and weather boarded house of many periods standing on a hillside
Old Bowling Ground. This is between here and Sheering Mill Lane and the churchyard