Historic building a café with a difference

9:44am Wednesday 30th November 2005

AN historic Rickmansworth building has been given a new lease of life after opening as a "theatre of baking".

Number 9 Church Street is now Cinnamon Square and children were invited to come into "The Makery" to decorate cakes and cookies on Friday, November 25, as part of the town's Victorian evening.

Cinnamon Square is the brainchild of Paul and Tricia Barker.

The Rickmansworth couple already had a mail order business selling baking kits and gifts, but this year chose to open a store in their home town.

Now, anyone passing along Church Street will not fail to be drawn to Cinnamon Square, a bakery and caf reminiscent of the shop in Joanne Harris's novel Chocolat. Like the shop in the novel, the window of Cinnamon Square is full of tempting chocolate treats that have all been made on site.

Tricia said: "We have been very well received by the local community. We have had a great response, especially to the bread and the cinnamon squares."

The building where Cinnamon Square is now housed retains many of its original features, including low wooden beams on the ground floor and a timber roof spanning the upstairs seating area.

Church Street is part of the Rickmansworth Conservation Area, which means the road has been designated by Three Rivers District Council as an area of special architectural interest.

Cinnamon Square itself is in a listed building, which can trace its history back to the 16th Century and is a single bay building, in other words it is one room wide. It was part of an early 16th Century or earlier timber-framed three-bay hall house and a surviving part of one of the very early houses that lined the way to St Mary's Church. The building, which is opposite the old vicarage, was originally open from floor to ceiling. In about 1600, a chimney, floor, and dormer window were added.

Joyce Bishop, a Chorleywood resident who has studied timber framed buildings, said: "It is an important little building that adds to the mixed character of buildings of all periods in Church Street and has survived for nearly 500 years."

Tricia explained how she and her husband found the site: "We are local and we were keeping an eye on what was going on. A board went up outside the building.

"It fits in with our business really well. It has quite a historic character."

Around the site