23/06/2026
The Saracen’s Head, Ware – A Coaching Inn with Centuries of History
These fascinating photographs capture one of Ware’s most historic buildings – the Saracen’s Head, a landmark that has welcomed travellers for centuries.
The image of the courtyard shows the inn in its traditional role as a coaching hotel. Before the arrival of the railway, Ware sat on the busy route between London and Cambridge, and inns such as the Saracen’s Head provided food, accommodation and stabling for horses. The long timber-framed range visible on the right would have housed coaching facilities, storage and service buildings, while the central courtyard would once have been bustling with horses, carts and travellers arriving from across the country.
The second photograph looks along Ware High Street in the early 20th century. The Saracen’s Head can be seen on the right-hand side, its prominent sign projecting over the street. At a time when horse-drawn vehicles still shared the road with the earliest motor traffic, the inn remained one of the town’s best-known stopping places.
Ware’s prosperity was built on its position as a transport hub, first on the Great North Road and later through the river navigation and railway. Coaching inns like the Saracen’s Head played a vital role in that story, serving merchants, stagecoach passengers and visitors travelling through Hertfordshire.
Today, these photographs offer a glimpse into a vanished world of coaching yards, stable blocks and bustling market-town life, reminding us how important the Saracen’s Head was to the development of Ware.
