Exterior

History: The hotel is substantially a late C18 building, with some early C19 extensions, but it incorporates fragmentary remains of an earlier building on the site, and documentary records suggest that there has been an inn here since at least 1745 (the date of the earliest rate book for the town).

Exterior: Comprises a main range facing Church Street, with a rear wing parallel to Severn Street. It was extended in the early C19 with a continuation of the main range, and a wing built parallel to it at the rear of the site. Brick with slate roof; gable end stack to left; rear wall stack to right. 3 storeys, 7-window range facing Church Street, with slightly advanced right-hand bay, and main entrance to right of centre in the angle with the advanced bay; secondary entrance towards the centre. Main door in stone Tuscan portico porch. Secondary entrance is a 6-panelled door with overlight in moulded architrave. Lower windows are all 12-pane sashes; similar windows above, but with tripartite small-paned sashes above the entrance and towards the left on the first floor. Flat arched rendered heads, cambered over the wider windows. Lower 8-pane sash windows below the modillion eaves cornice in attic storey. Advanced right-hand bay is canted in plan, and has a tripartite small-paned sash window on each floor. To the left of the main range, the 'Ostlers' Bar' range is a later addition: brick with slate roof and rear wall stack; a 3-storeyed, 3-window range with central entrance. Lower openings renewed, but the upper windows are 20-pane sashes with flat arched brick heads (the glazing in one replaced with a 2-light mullioned and transomed casement). Dentilled eaves band. Return elevation to Severn Street has similar 12 and 9-pane sash windows (2 to ground and first floors, 3 above). Paired stacks on its right hand gable. Rear wing parallel with the main entrance range is a slightly later addition (probably early C19): 3 storeys, 5-window range, similarly detailed. Fine wrought-iron sign and bracket towards the angle with the entrance range.

Interior: Wide entrance hall leading to main stair hall towards the rear. This has shallow dog-leg oak staircase, with moulded tread ends, turned newel posts and plain spindles, and rises to a similarly detailed gallery, forming a spacious square well. In the present dining room, in the rear range of the hotel, alteration work exposed a timber-framed partition wall which is probably a relic of an earlier building on the site.

A well-preserved town coaching inn of exceptional quality.

External Links

• Cadwr Listing
• Wikidata Q29486777

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
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  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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