16, Market Square (Dogs Head / Clement Joscelyne)
Although the present building standingon the south-west corner of Market Square is a pub, the Dog’s Head, this is only a recent development.
An engraving from the 1830’s shows a rather elegant premises with two distinctive gables, dating from the 17th century, hiding behind the corner of the south wing of the newly built Corn Exchange.
By 1851, it was owned by James Sapsford who was a butcher and slaughterer, with a shop facing onto Market Square and a slaughterhouse and cattle pound behind.
In 1878, the premises, somewhat run-down, were acquired by Clement Joscelyne. He, with his brother Henry, was a furniture retailer in Braintree and had cycled across to Bishop’s Stortford to look for new premises to start his own business. The new furniture shop opened a year later, in 1879. The front was remodelled in 1887, with the addition of elegant bay windows. The business expanded round the square, buying no.’s 10 and 12 in 1922; no. 14, then the Territorial Club and before that the Currier’s Arms in 1924 and then, in 1960, in the opposite direction, the Plume of Feathers, at the corner. This can be seen as the brick building on the left in the above photograph, abutting the Sapsford building.
Clement Joscelyne ca. 1979
In 1997, the premises were destroyed by fire and then rebuilt in the style of the original building. Clement Joscelyne overstretched itself in the early 2000’s with an over ambitious expansion plan in East Anglia, ran into financial difficulties and was forced to close. The premises were then redeveloped into a hospitality business by McMullens, the Hertford brewer, first as Baroosh and then the Dog’s Head. The name comes from the name of a pub which was situated further round Market Square, at no. 8 (now the left-hand end of Nockolds). This had various dog-related names over the years – the Dog, the Dog’s Head, the Dog’s Head in the Pot, the Dog & Pot, finally closing in 1902. The original Dog can be seen in the rear on the right-hand side, with the Curriers Arms to the fore.
The Dog and the Curriers Arms, ca. 1879
Somewhat confusingly, the present street number of the Dog’s Head in no 18 whilst Mint Velvet next door is no. 16.
