[H1]REWIND: Hitchin Nub News Rewind:[H1]

Hello and welcome to our regular Rewind section where we highlight a person or place in our town every week in our Friday newsletter and then over the weekend on our website.

For this week we are featuring the history of the Lord Lister Hotel.

Some of you may be aware that the Grade II listed building has turned into a hostel that has seen a spike in anti-social behaviour in the town centre (read our special report here

Hitchin Nub News will be publishing all the latest news on the situation but in the meantime, let's take a look at the town centre site's glory years with our new Rewind feature.

History of the Lord Lister

The Lord Lister Hotel, a Grade II listed building built in the Georgian style, marked by symmetry and proportion based on the classical architecture of Greece and Rome, as revived in Renaissance architecture.

Its facade is an excellent example of early 19th century architecture with a traditional coach archway.

The Lord Lister Hotel was originally a Woolcomber's House built in the late 18th century, and was owned by a man called Thomas Williams.

Woolcombing was part of the process of worsted manufacture. In the manufacture of woollen textiles the raw wool was carded to lay the tangled fibres into roughly parallel strands so that they could be more easily drawn out for spinning.

Wool used for worsted cloth required more thorough treatment for not only had the fibres to be laid parallel to each other but unwanted short staple wool also had to be removed.

This process was called combing. It was an apprenticed trade, a seven year apprenticeship being the norm in the mid 18th century with apprenticeship starting at about the age of 12 or 13.

Where did the Lord Lister get its name from?

The building got its name from the fact it was the site of Isaac Brown's Academy, where Joseph Lister junior began his schooling in 1840, when he arrived at the age of five.

His father, Joseph Jackson Lister senior, was a physicist who invented the microscope, while Joe junior writes home every week, including French and Latin.

Lord Lister (1827–1912) rose to become an eminent surgeon. He pioneered the use of antiseptic surgery, with North Herts main hospital named after him, which was built in Stevenage in 1972, complete with space for 770 beds.

Lister moved to Middlesex in 1841, but continued his association with Hitchin through family ties with well-known fellow Quakers, the Lucas and Seebohm families.

As an aside, if you look closely on Hermitage Road there is a blue plaque in honour of Frederic Seebohm near to the site of where he had a large house on Bancroft called The Hermitage, which was to give its name to one of Hitchin's busiest thoroughfares, namely Hermitage Road of course.

Lord Lister in the 21st century

It was owned by Nick and Josie Raviele, who had been running it since 1998, until, without any warning, they mysteriously sold out to a company called Keystage for £1.2m, which was believed to be under the market price, and it is now a hostel housing former prison inmates and those with drug addictions.

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[H2]There is still time to lodge your objection to the change of use for the Lord Lister by contacting North Herts Council quoting reference 22/00170/FP.[H2]

Or you can write to (or email) the Development and Conservation Manager - Simon Ellis, quoting application reference 22/00170/FP.

If you do want to object campaigners say should you explicitly state 'I object' in your correspondence to:

[email protected]