The house near Ware was designed in 1970 by Patty Hopkins (later Lady Hopkins) for the brother of her husband, Michael Hopkins (later Sir Michael Hopkins).

On the site were former farm workers cottages, part of which were retained with this house. To a small extent, therefore, the house is a conversion of the original cottages although later extensions by Hopkins make the original parts only a very small part of the overall building.

This was a very early design by Hopkins, who was in her late ‘20s at the time, but you can still see here themes that would emerge throughout all the later work of Hopkins Architects. Principally there is an interest in clarity of construction and spatial arrangement. It wasn’t much later in the mid-1970s that Michael and Patty designed their famous steel-frame house in Hampstead which at first glance appears to bear little resemblance to the house in Ware but, as Hopkins has said in a recent discussion about the house at Ware, “they both show our strong interest in frame houses”. In other words the frames of the house (in one case timber, in another steel) define the internal space and the overall design. In 1970, Patty and Michael had recently bought a 16th century timber frame farm house in Suffolk and their extensive work on this and investigations into the way it was built largely informed the design of the house at Ware and, perhaps to a lesser extent, their house in Hampstead.

Patty and Michael went on to form Hopkins Architects later in the decade, with the pair being among a powerful group of architects who redefined British architecture at that time. Alongside the likes of Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Nicholas Grimshaw they became known for what was termed the High Tech style. Although in many senses this was a futuristic approach to architecture, embracing as it did new materials and ideologies, it was also an attempt to get back to the simple, elemental essentials of architecture, as can be seen in the great interest the Hopkins’ had, and continue to have, in timber frames.