Ware Travel Guide

 Willettsworld Says:  The original friary was founded in 1338 (no one knows the story of how it came to be known as The Priory). After the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in the 1530s, the building has undergone many phases of construction and alteration during its 650 year life.... 

 Willettsworld Says:  The Ware Museum was established in 1986 and incorporates the town's World War II command bunker used during air raids, a medieval well discovered during building work (which you can walk on!) and an outside herb garden. Items from the museum collection on permanent display... 

 Willettsworld Says:  The Maltmaker state in the Ware Memorial Gardens outside St Mary's Church was especially commissioned to mark the Millennium. The bronze life size plus a quarter statue of a Ware maltster and his cat was erected in autumn 1999 to commemorate six hundred years of the malting... 

 Willettsworld Says:  The library was built in 1765 as a maltster's house on the site of the Crown, one of the homes of the Great Bed of Ware which dates from around 1590 and measures ten by eleven feet. It's now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The building later became the town house... 

 Willettsworld Says:  This 14th century building was rebuilt in 1624 to include a Roman Catholic Chapel. It became the Royal Oake Inn after the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. 

 Willettsworld Says:  The Old Punch House was a well known resort for elderly gentlemen in Victorian times. It's now a modern pub. 

 Willettsworld Says:  This building along the High Street was built on the site of the 15th century Bear Inn which later became the Falcon Foundry, run by Charles Wells in the 1830s making fittings for the Maltings. 

 Willettsworld Says:  The town hall was built in 1827 on the site of an earlier market as an arcaded corn market with a meeting hall above. It became a shop in the 1840s and was restored in 1985. It's now an estate agents. 

 Willettsworld Says:  This Methodist church is located via a small passageway from East Street and was built in 1816 before being rebuilt in 1859. 

 Willettsworld Says:  The wonderful looking gazebos or 'Dutch summerhouses' were erected along the River Lea from 1690 onwards at the end of the gardens of the former inns to give guests a peaceful outlook, away from the hurly-burly of the High Street. This group is unique in England. 

 Willettsworld Says:  The River Lea flows through Ware and was made navigable as a canal between Hertford Castle and the River Thames in London. The canal provided excellent access for barges in Ware's main industry of malting but today is home to leisure barges. If you take a walk along the... 

 Willettsworld Says:  This Roman Catholic Church, built in 1939, is located just a little further up the hill from Christ Church along New Road. 

 Willettsworld Says:  Place House was the medieval manor house of Ware for Thomas, Lord Wake (1297-1349). Dendrochronology has been conducted on timbers inside the building and suggested a date of around 1300, however the house may even date to as early as the late 13th century. Built as an... 

 Willettsworld Says:  This church was consecrated on 9th November 1858 by the Bishop of Rochester. The church, the then vicarage and the school was provided for by Robert Hanbury. It is built in the early English style of architecture, of ragstone from Kent.